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GERMAN ATROCITIES 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 

AN OFFICIAL INVESTIGATION 



J J -''■ BY 

J; H. MORGAN, M.A., 

OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRI8TER-AT-LAW, 

PBOFEBSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; 

LATE HOME OFFICE COMMISSIONER WITH THE BRITISH 

EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 



Mentem mortalia tangunt 




NEW YORK 
E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 






COPTBIOHT, 1916, 
BT 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 



Printed in the U. S. A. 

-6 1916 
©CI.A427982 



TO 

M. ARMAND MOLLARD 

MINI8TRE PLENIPOTENTIAIRE, 

MEMBER OP "la COMMISSION INSTITUEE 

EN VTJE DE CONSTATER LES ACTES C0MMI8 

PAR l'ENNEMI en VIOLATION DU DROIT DE8 GENS," 

THIS WORK IS DEDICATED 

IN RECOGNITION OP HIS COURTESY AND COLLABORATION 

IN THE PURSUIT OP A COMMON TASK. 



CONTENTS 



FAQB 

Prefatory Note v 

Dedication ....,., vii 

CHAPTEB 

I. — Introductory : 

(1) The British Enquiry 1 

(2) The German Case — a critical Analysis of 

the German White Book .... 6 

(3) German Credibility — a Review of the Evi- 

dence ...,.,. 30 

(4) The Future of International Law and the 

Question of Eetribution .... 44 

II. — The British Enquiry in France: 

(1) Methods of Enquiry 60 

(2) Outrages upon Combatants in the Field . 64 

(3) Treatment of Civil Population ... 76 

(4) Outrages upon Women — the German Occu- 

pation of Bailleul ..... 81 

(5) Private Property ..... 84 

(6) Observations on a Tour of the Marne and 

the Aisne ...... 85 

(7) Bestiality of German Officers and Men . 87 

(8) Conclusion 90 

III. — Documentary (Nev7 Evidence) : 

(1) Depositions and Statements (Fifty-six in 
number) illustrating breaches of the Laws 
of War by German Troops, mainly Out- 
rages on British Soldiers ... 93 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



(2) Documents relative to the German Occupa- 

tion of Bailleul 122 

(3) Evidence relating to the Murder of Eleven 

Civilians at Doulieu .... l54 

(4) Deposition of a Survivor of the Massacre of 

Tamines 137 

(5) Five German Diaries ..... 139 

(6) Documents forwarded by the Kussian Gov- 

ernment ....... 146 

(7) The German White Book : The Introductory 

Memorandum ...... 158 

(8) Depositions relating to the Massacre of 

Wounded and Captive Highlanders by a 
German Bombing Party on September 
25th, 1915, at Haisnea . . . .169 

(9) Depositions as to the use of Incendiary Bul- 

lets by the German Troops . . . 174 

(10) Depositions as to the Employment by Ger- 
man Troops of Russian Prisoners upon 
Military Workg on the Western Front . 177 



PREFATORY NOTE 

Professor Morgan desires to express his obligations 
to the Russian Embassy, the Foreign Office, the Home 
Office, the French Ministry of War, and the General 
Headquarters Staff of the British Expeditionary 
Force for the assistance which they have given him. 
For the opinions expressed in Part IV. of the Intro- 
ductory Chapter Professor Morgan is alone respon- 
sible. The whole of the documents given in the 
''Documentary Chapter" of this book (except the 
Memorandum from the German White Book which 
has been published in German, though not, of course, 
in English) are now published for the first time. 



II 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 



Chapter I 
INTRODUCTORY 



THE BRITISH ENQUIRY 

The second chapter of this book has already appeared 
in the pages of the June issue of the Nineteenth Cen- 
tury and After. At the time of its appearance nu- 
merous suggestions were made — notably by the 
Morning Post and the Daily Chronicle— that it should 
be republished in a cheaper and more accessible 
form. A similar suggestion has come to us f rom^ the 
Ministry of War in Paris, reinforced by the intima- 
tion that the review containing the article was not 
obtainable owing to its having inunediately gone out 
of print. Since then an official reprint has been 
largely circulated in neutral countries by the British 
Government, and an abbreviated reprint of it has 
been published by the Parliamentary Recruiting Com- 
mittee in the form of a pamphlet. The Secretary to 

1 



2 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

the Committee informs me that considerably over a 
million and a half copies of this pamphlet have been 
circulated. 

At the suggestion of Mr. Fisher Unwin, and by the 
courtesy of the editor of the Nineteenth Century, the 
article is now republished as a whole, but with it is 
published for the first time a documentary chapter 
containing a selection of illustrative documents, none 
of which have hitherto appeared in print. For per- 
mission to publish them I am chiefly indebted to the 
Home Office and the Foreign Office. Needless to say, 
the original article also was submitted to the Home 
Office authorities, by whom it was duly read and ap- 
proved before publication. These documents by no 
means exhaust the unpublished evidence in my pos- 
session, but my object has been not to multiply proofs 
but to exemplify them, and, in particular, as is ex- 
plained in the following chapter, to supplement the 
Bryce Report on matters which, owing to the exig- 
encies of space and the pre-occupation with the case 
of Belgium, occupy a comparatively subordinate 
place in that document. This volume may, in fact, 
be regarded as a postscript to the Bryce Report— it 
does not pretend to be anything more.^ 

There is, however, an extremely important aspect 
of the question which has not yet been the subject 
of an official report in this country, and that is the 

*The writer's chief contributions to the Bryce Report will 
be found on pages 190, etc., of the Committee's Appendix [cd. 
7895.] 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 3 

German White Book.^ It has never been published 
in England, and is very difficult to obtain. There 
is some reason to believe that the German Govern- 
ment now entertain considerable misgivings about the 
expediency of its original publication, and are none 
too anxious to circulate it. The reason will, I think, 
be tolerably obvious to anyone who will do me the 
honour to read the critical analysis which follows. 

I will not attempt to prejudice that analysis at 
this stage. I shall have something to say later in 
this chapter as to the credibility of the German Gov- 
ernment in these matters. It is a rule of law that, 
when a defendant puts his character in issue, or 
makes imputations on the prosecutor or his witnesses, 
as the Germans have done, his character may legit- 
imately be the subject of animadversion. To impeach 
it at this stage might appear, however, to beg the 
question of the value of the White Book, which is 
best examined as a matter of internal evidence with- 
out the importation of any reflections on the char- 
acter of its authors. 

As regards the value of the evidence on the other 
side — the English, Belgian, and French Reports — 
I doubt if any careful reader requires persuasion as 
to their authenticity. In the case of the Bryce Re- 
port, the studied sobriety of its tone — to say nothing 
of the known integrity and judiciousness of its au- 

' Published by the German Foreign Office under the title of 
**Die volkerechstwidrige Fiihrung des belgischen Volkskriegs. " 
The abbreviation "G. W. B. " will be used in the notes to 
this chapter. 



4 GERIVIAN ATROCITIES 

thors — carried instant conviction to the minds of all 
honest and thoughtful men, and that conviction was 
assuredly not disturbed by the vituperative descrip- 
tion of it by the Kolnische Zeitung as a **mean col- 
lection of official lies." No attempt has ever been 
made to answer it. As regards the French Reports, 
which are not as fully known in this country as they 
might be,^ I had the honour of working in collabora- 
tion with M. Llollard, a member of the French Com- 
mission of Inquiry, and I was greatly impressed with 
their scrupulous regard for truth, and their inflexi- 
ble insistence on corroboration. My own methods of 
inquiry are sufficiently indicated in the chapter which 
follows, but I may add two illustrations of what, I 
think, may fairly be described as the scrupulousness 
with which the inquiries at General Headquarters 
were conducted. The reader may remember that in 
May of last year a report as to the crucifixion of two 
Canadian soldiers obtained wide currency in this 
country. A Staff officer and myself immediately in- 
stituted inquiries by means of a visit to the Canadian 
Headquarters, at that time situated in the neighbour- 
hood of Ypres, and by the cross-examination of 
wounded Canadians on the way to the base. We 
found that this atrocity was a matter of common be- 
lief among the Canadian soldiers, and at times we 
seemed to be on a hot scent, but eventually we failed 
to discover any one who had been an actual eye- 

' The Reports have been translated, but not the evidence. I 
am indebted to M. Mollard for providing me with copies of the 
latter, to which reference is made below. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 5 

witness of the atrocity in question. It may or may 
not have occurred — we have had irrefragable proof 
that such things have occurred — and it is conceivable 
that those who saw it had perished and their testi- 
mony with them. But it was felt that mere hearsay 
evidence, however strong, was not admissible, and, 
as a result, no report was ever issued. 

In the other case a man in a Highland regiment, 
on discovering himself in hospital in the company of 
a wounded Prussian, attempted to assault the latter, 
swearing that he had seen him bayoneting a wounded 
British soldier as he lay helpless upon the field. He 
was positive as to the identification and there could 
be no doubt as to the sincerity of his statements. But 
as one Prussian Guardsman is very like another — the 
facial and cranial uniformity is remarkable — and 
there was no corroboration as to identity, no action 
was taken. As to the fact of the atrocity having 
occurred there could, however, be no doubt. 

I may add that the numerous British officers whom 
I interrogated in the earlier stages of the war showed 
a marked disinclination — innate, I think, in the Brit- 
ish character — to believe stories reflecting upon the 
honour of the foe to whom they were opposed in the 
field. But at a later stage I found that this indulgent 
scepticism had wholly disappeared. Facts had been 
too intractable, experience too harsh, disillusion too 
bitter. The lesson has been dearly learnt — ^many a 
brave and chivalrous officer has owed his death to the 
treachery of a mean and unscrupulous foe. But it 
has been learnt once and for all. And, indeed, judg- 



6 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

ing by the information which reaches me from vari- 
ous sources, the enemy affords our men no chance of 
forgetting it. 



n 



THE GERMAN CASE — A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE GER- 
MAN WHITE BOOK 

On May 10th — some five days before the publication 
of the Bryce Report — the German Government drew 
up a voluminous White Book purporting to be a 
Report on Offences against International Law in the 
conduct of the war by the Belgians. It may be de- 
scribed as a kind of intelligent anticipation of the 
case they might have to meet ; the actual case, as pre- 
sented in the Bryce Report, they have never at- 
tempted to meet, and to this day that report has 
never been answered. The German White Book — 
of which no translation is accessible to the public in 
this country— has attracted very little attention over 
here, and I propose to make a close and reasoned an- 
alysis of it, for no more damning and incriminating 
defence has ever been put forth by a nation arraigned 
at the bar of public opinion. In doing so I shall rely 
on the German Report itself and shall make no at- 
tempt to refute it by drawing upon the evidence of 
the English and Belgian Reports, convincing though 
that is, because to do so might seem to beg the ques- 
tion at issue, which is the relative credibility of the 
parties. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 7 

German Invocation of The Hague Conventions. 

The case which the German Government had avow- 
edly to meet was the wholesale slaughter of Belgian 
civilians, and the fact of such slaughter having taken 
place they make no attempt to deny. They enter a 
plea of justification and, in a word, they attempt to 
argue that the levee en masse or ''People's War" of 
the Belgian nation was not conducted in accordance 
with the terms of the Hague regulations relating to 
improvised resistance in cases of this kind. I will not 
here go over the well-trodden ground of Belgian neu- 
trality ; it is enough that in a now notorious utterance 
the Imperial Chancellor has admitted that the Ger- 
man invasion was a breach of international law.^ 

The substance of the Hague Convention ^ is that 
the civil population of a country at war are entitled 
to recognition as lawful belligerents if they conform 
to four conditions. They must have a responsible 
commander; they must wear a distinctive and recog- 
nisable badge; they must carry their arms openly; 

* Speech in the Eeichstag, August 4th, 1914. But, so far as 
I know, no one in this country has noticed that the absolute 
inviolability of Belgium, under all circumstances and without 
exception, has been laid down in the leading German text-book 
on International Law, which declares that such treaties are 
the great ** landmarks of progress" in the formation of a 
European polity, and that the guarantors must step in, whether 
invited or uninvited, to vindicate them. * 'Nothing," it is 
added, * * could make the situation of Europe more insecure than 
an egotistical repudiation by the great States of these duties 
of international fellowship." — Holtzendorff Kandhuch des 
VolkerrecJits III. (Part 16), pp. 93, 108, 109. 

' Begulations, Arts. 1 and 2. 



8 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

and they must conduct their operations in accordance 
with the laws and customs of war. In the case, how- 
ever, of an invasion, where there has been no time 
to organise in conformity with this article, the first 
and second conditions are expressly dispensed with, 
provided there is compliance with the third and 
fourth. Now, not only have these rules been sub- 
scribed by the German representatives and, according 
to Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, their principal 
spokesman at the Hague Conference, such subscrip- 
tion was absolute and unconditional ; ^^ but the prin- 
ciple which they embody has been accepted by all 
the leading German jurists. * ' There exists no ground 
for denying to the masses of a country the natural 
right to defend their Fatherland ... ; it is only 
by such levies that the smaller and less powerful 
States can defend themselves. ' ' ^ The same author- 
ity argues that no State is bound to limit itself to 
its regular army; it could, he adds, call up civil 
guards or even women and children, who in such case 
would be entitled to the rights of lawful belliger- 
ents.* 

What then is the German justification for the mas- 
sacre of the Belgian civilians? Its main contention 
is that the Belgian Government ''had sufficient time 

'a cf. Von Bieberstein at the Hague Conference of 1907, *' The 
international law which we wish to create should contain only 
those clauses the execution of which is possible from a military 
point of view." {Actes et Documents I., page 282.) 

■ Holtzendorff, IV., 385. 

* Hid., IV., 374. This is an important admission in view of 
what the Germans allege to have happened in Belgium. 



GERMAN ATEOCITIES 9 

for an organisaiion of the People's War as required 
by international law " ; ^ in other words that a spon- 
taneous and unorganised resistance in Belgium could 
not claim the immunities of Article 2 of the Hague 
Regulations. The effrontery of this contention is truly 
amazing. The Belgian Government had, at the most, 
two days — two days in which to organise a whole na- 
tion for defence. The German ultimatum to Belgium 
was issued on August 2nd; the violation of Belgian 
territory took place on August 4th. How could a 
little nation with a small standing army organise its 
whole population on a military basis within two days 
against the most powerful and mobile army in Eu- 
rope, equipped with all the modern engines of war? 
The German Government do, indeed, attempt to sup- 
port their contention by urging further that *Hhe 
preparation of mobilisation began, as can be proved, 
at least a week before the invasion of the German 
Army. ' ' ^ Now, granting — and it is granting a great 
deal — that a week would be sufficient to organise un- 
trained civilians for defence, it would still remain to 
be proved that the Belgian Government did begin 
to mobilise a week beforehand. The German White 
Book does not prove it; the Belgian Grey Book dis- 
proves it. The Belgian Government, relying on the 
plighted faith of Germany, had not even begun to 
mobilise on July 29th — six days before the invasion/ 

•* German White Book: Introductory Memorandum. 
"German White Book: Introductory Memorandum. 
''Belgian Grey Book (Correspondance Diplomatique relative a 
la Guerre de 1914), No. 8 (dated July 29th, 1914). 



10 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Indeed, it was only on July 24tli that they were suf- 
ficiently alarmed to address interrogatories to the 
Great Powers, Germany among them, for assurances 
as to the immunity of Belgium from, attack.^ As late 
as July 31st the German Government effectually con- 
cealed its intentions.^ It is, in fact, a matter of com- 
mon notoriety that the German move against Belgium 
was as sudden in execution as it was premeditated 
in design. She entered like a thief in the night. 

Charges against the Belgian Government. 

The main contention of the German Government 
therefore falls to the ground. What remains? It is 
here that the German answer betrays itself by its 
disingenuousness. There is an old rule of pleading, 
familiar to lawyers, which says a traverse must be 
neither too large nor too narrow. This is just the 
error into which the German contention falls. The 
apologies are too anxious to prove everything in turn 
as the occasion suits, forgetting that one of their con- 
tentions often refutes the other. In the introductory 
memorandum they argue that Belgium had time to 
organise and did not. In their excuse for the mas- 
sacre at Dinant, and their zeal to prove that the mil- 
itary exigencies were overwhelming, they say that 
**the organisation" — of civilian resistance — ''was 
remarkable for its careful preparation and wide ex- 
tent"; ''that the guns were only partly sporting 

^Ibid., No. 2 (July 24th, 1914). 

'British Blue Book (Great Britain and the European Crisis), 
Nos. 85 and 122. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES II 

guns and revolvers but partly also machine guns and 
Belgian military weapons proves that the organisa- 
tion had the support of the Belgian Government. ' ' ^^ 
In other words, in one part of the White Book they 
insist that the resistance was ruthlessly punished 
because it was not organised ; in another that because 
it was organised it had to be ruthlessly repressed. In 
another place/^ having to justify their peculiar prin- 
ciple of vicarious responsibility by which the inno- 
cent have to answer for the guilty, they say that the 
Belgian Government and the municipal hostages 
whom the Germans executed ought to have stopped 
''this guerilla warfare," and did not do so. Now it 
is well known, and the German Government admits 
it, that the public authorities issued proclamations or- 
dering the people to abstain from hostilities and to 
surrender their arms. How does the German Gov- 
ernment meet this? The only evidence they can pro- 
duce in the whole of their pompous dossier is (1) 
the deposition of a German Jew, resident in Brussels, 
to the effect that, seeing the proclamation, he sent 
his servant to the Belgian authorities to deliver up a 
revolver, and that the servant came back and said 
that the Commissioner of Police had told him not to 
trouble as ''one need not believe everything that is 
in the papers"; ^^ (2) the deposition of a German 
lieutenant that an officer (not named) once showed 
him a document (not produced), which, "according 

"G. W. B. (Appendix C), General Eeport on Dinant. 
^^ Ibid., Introductory Memorandum. 



13 



G. W. B., Appendix 51. 



12 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

to his own account" he had found in the town hall 
of a neighbouring village (not indicated), containing 
an invitation on the part of the Belgian Government, 
addressed to the population, to render armed resist- 
ance in return for payment.^^ On such flimsy hear- 
say evidence, tendered by two Germans, rests the 
whole of the German case against the Belgian Gov- 
ernment. 

Belgian "Atrocities." 

Like a defendant who has no case, the German 
Government attempt to plead generally in default 
of being able to plead specifically. They therefore 
put forward a sweeping generalisation to the effect 
that, quite apart from the question whether the Bel- 
gians did or did not comply with the formal require- 
ments of the Hague Convention, they violated all the 
usages of war by *' unheard of" atrocities. *' Fi- 
nally it is proved beyond all doubt that German 
wounded were robbed and killed by the Belgian popu- 
lation, and indeed were subjected to horrible muti- 
lation, and that even women and young girls took 
part in these shameful actions. In this way the eyes 
of German wounded were torn out, their ears, nose, 
fingers and sexual organs cut off, or their body cut 
open. ' ' ^* Let us consider the depositions with which 
this accusation is supported. 

(1) Hugo Lagershausen, of the 1st Ersatz Com- 

" Ibid., Appendix 53. 
"G. W. B., Memorandum. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 13 

pany of the Reserve, his attention having been drawn 
to the significance of the oath, declares: 

'*I lost the other men of the patrol. About noon on August 
6th, I came to a dressing station, which was set up on a farm 
near the village of Chenee. In the house I found about fifteen 
severely wounded German soldiers, of whom four or five had 
been horribly mutilated; both their eyes had been gouged out, 
and some had had several fingers cut off. Their wounds were 
relatively fresh although the blood was already somewhat co- 
agulated. The men were still living and were groaning. It 
was not possible for me to help them, as I had already ascer- 
tained by questioning other wounded men lying in that house, 
there was no doctor in the place. I also found in the house 
six or seven Belgian civilians, four of whom were women; 
these gave drinks to the wounded; the men were entirely pas- 
sive. I saw no weapons on them, and I cannot say whether 
they had blood on their hands, because they put them in their 
pockets. ' ' ^^ 

It is highly probably, is it not? Musketeer Lagers- 
hausen falls among ghouls who hastily put their in- 
criminating hands in their pockets and allow him 
who was ** entirely alone" and powerless to walk 
off and inform against them. Truly they must have 
been some of the mildest-mannered men who ever 

cut a throat. 

(2) Musketeer Paul Blankenberg, of Infantry 

Regiment No. 165, declares: 

*'We were on the march in closed column and passing 
through a Belgian village west of Herve. 'In the village some 
German wounded were lying and I recognised some Jager of 

^^Ilid., Appendix 59. 



14 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

the Jager Battalion, No. 4. Suddenly the column marching 
through was fired upon from the houses, and accordingly the 
order was given that all civilians should be removed from the 
houses and driven together to one point. While this was being 
done I noticed that girls of eight to ten years old, armed with 
sharp instruments, busied themselves with the German wounded. 
Later, I ascertained that the ear lobes and upper parts of the 
ears of the most seriously injured of the wounded had been 
cut off."" 

That is to say, a whole column of German troops 
is on the march in close formation, they round up the 
civilians and while they are doing this some little 
girls continue, in presence of this overwhelming force, 
to **busy themselves" by cutting up their comrades 
with the contents of their mothers' work-box. 

(3) Landwehrman Alwin Chaton, of the 5th Com- 
pany of the Reserve Infantry Regiment No. 78, de- 
clared : 

*'In the course of the street fighting in Charleroi, as we 
fought our way through the High Street and had reached a side 
street leading off the High Street, I saw, when I had reached 
the crossing and shot into the side street, a German dragoon 
lying in the street about fifty or sixty paces in front of me. 
Three civilians were near him, of whom one was bending over 
the soldier, who still kicked with his legs. I shot among them 
and hit the last of the civilians; the others fled. When I ap- 
proached I saw that the shot civilian had a long knife, covered 
with blood, in his hand. The right eye of the German dragoon 
was gouged out. ' ' " 

The witness adds that ''much smoke was rising 

"G. W. B., Appendix 56. 
^^Ibid., Appendix 63. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 15 

from the body of the dragoon. ' ' This is to say that a 
general engagement, one of the hardest fought dur- 
ing the war, is going on in the middle of a town and 
three civilians are discovered within fifty or sixty 
paces, leisurely carving up a German dragoon! Is 
it credible? 

(4) My fourth example is too long to quote, but in 
substance it is this. Reservist G. Gustav Voigt de- 
poses that on August 6th he and seven comrades sud- 
denly saw five Belgian soldiers, fully armed, holding 
up their arms to surrender. When they went up to 
them they discovered that the Belgians had a German 
hussar strung up and freshly mutilated, and that 
they had two other hussars upon whom they were 
about to perform similar operations.^^ Without firing 
a shot, these men, caught red-handed under circum- 
stances which made their own death inevitable, sur- 
render immediately. 

Now I ask any unbiassed reader whether these dep- 
ositions, in each case uncorroborated, are such as to 
carry conviction to any reasonable man? Yet the 
whole of the ''proofs" adduced as to Belgian atro- 
cities are of this character. 

The Massacres — Andenne. 

When we come to the justification alleged for the 
wholesale massacres of communities the evidence is 
even more suspicious. In order to prove the Belgians 
unspeakable knaves the German Government have to 
present them as incredible fools. At Andenne, "a 

^^ Hid., Appendix 56. 



16 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

smaU town of a population of about 8,000 people," 
there were affrays in which *' about 200 inhabitants 
lost their lives. ''^* According to the German docu- 
ment, **two infantry regiments and a Jager bat- 
talion'' were marching through this place when they 
were set upon by the inhabitants. Two regiments 
and a battalion would constitute the greater part of 
a brigade ; they must have amounted to at least 7,000 
men.^^ We are asked to believe that this small un- 
protected community (one of the German witnesses 
expressly says, *'I did not see one single French or 
Belgian soldier in the entire town or the envi- 
rons'') ^^ made an unprovoked attack on this over- 
whelming force, and that the women assisted with 
pots of scalding water. Two hundred of the civilians 
were, by the German admission, shot. The German 
losses were, it is added, '* singularly small." So sin- 
gularly small were they that the German Report omits 
even to enumerate them. 

Jamoigne and Tintigny. 

In another case — the village of Jamoigne — an am- 
munition column halted for water. The attitude of 
the population ''was friendly; water, coffee, and to- 
bacco were offered to some non-commissioned officers 
and men." Suddenly, while part of the population 

» G. W. B., Appendix B. 

"This is the normal figure of such German units according 
to the basis of calculation arrived at, after careful inquiry, by 
our own Headquarters Staff. 

*" G. W. B., Appendix B 1. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 17 

are standing outside their doors fully exposed, *'a 
general shooting'* is opened upon the crowd in the 
streets from the roofs and windows of the houses.^^ 
Is it intrinsically probable that Belgian civilians 
would be so careless of the lives of their fellow-cit- 
izens? Or take the case of Tintigny. An artillery 
ammunition column is welcomed, ** apparently with 
the best goodwill,'' assisted to water its horses, and 
then (but not before) ''when the horses had been 
again harnessed" and the opportunity for a surprise 
attack had passed, the inhabitants opened fire on the 
whole column.^^ Statements like these carry their 
own refutation with them. 

The Tragedy of Dinant. 

I turn to the case of Dinant, one of the most ap- 
palling massacres that have ever been perpetrated,^* 
even by the hordes of Kultur. No attempt is made 
to deny the wholesale slaughter ; it is freely admitted, 
and with sanguinary iteration we are told again and 

»2 G. W. B., Appendix 29. 

"^Ibid., No. 22. 

^ See the Appendix to tlie Bryce Report, pages 25-29. Any 
one who reads the depositions of the Belgian witnesses there set 
out, and compares them with the depositions of the German 
soldiers in the White Book cannot fail to be struck by certain 
notable differences in quality. The Belgian witnesses never 
generalise, they betray no malice, and they mention instances of 
German forbearance. The exact converse is true of the German 
evidence. Lord Bryce 's Committee came to the conclusion that 
they ''have no reason to believe that the civilian population of 
Dinant gave any provocation." (Report, page 20.) See also 
the Eleventh Belgian Report (Bapports officiels, page 137). 



18 GEmiAN ATROCITIES 

again ''a fairly large number of persons'* were shot, 
''aU the male hostages assembled against the garden 
waU were shot.'^ Such hattues occur on page after 
page.-^ TThat is the German excuse? It is that the 
civilian population offered a desperate resistance. To 
prove how desperate it was. and consequently to es- 
tablish the *' military necessity,'^ it has to be con- 
ceded that they were organised. But this is pro^'ing 
too much, for ''organised" civilian combatants are 
entitled to the privileges of lawful belligerents. 
Therefore it is argued that they were "without mil- 
itary badges": this phrase occurs with a curious lack 
of variation in the words of each witness. It is added 
that women and ''children (including girls) of ten 
or twelve years" were armed with revolvers I "El- 
derly women," "a white-haired old man." fired with 
insensate fury. None the less — says one ingenuous 
German witness — ' ' the people had all got a ver\' high 
opinion of Germany." At intervals during the en- 
gagement not only were groups of civilianSj alleged 
to have arms in their hands, shot in groups, but 
unarmed civilians were shot — "all the male host- 
ages." In other words the whole of the German 
defence that the German troops were punishing illicit 
fran<:s-tireurs is suddenly abandoned. Tiring appar- 
ently of these laboured inventions, the German staff, 
in a grim and sombre sentence, suddenly throws off 
the mask: 

"In judging the attitude wMeh the troops of the 12th Corps 

*G. W. B., Appendix C. Summarv and also C 5, 7, 10, 31, 
35, 40, 44 for references in the text 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 19 

took against such a population, our starting point must be that 
the tactical object of the 12th Corps was to cross the Meuse 
with speed, and to drive the enemy from the left bank of the 
Meuse; speedily to overcome the opposition of the inhabitants 
who were working in direct opposition to this was to he striven 
for in every way. . . . Hostages were shot at various places 
and this procedure is amply justified."^ 

It has been estimated that about eight hundred 
civilians perished in this massacre. The German 
White Book freely concedes that the number was 
large; indeed by a simple process of induction from 
the German evidence it is clear that it was very large. 
It appears that a whole Army Corps (the 1st Royal 
Saxon) "was engaged and that the armed troops of 
the Allies were encountered in force. The German 
troops received a check and it seems fairly obvious 
that they simply wreaked their vengeance, as they 
have so often done, on an unoffending population, 
presumably in order to intimidate the enemy in the 
field. Not for the first time they attempted to do 
by terror what they could not do by force of arms. 

"We gave them coffee." 

It is characteristic of the whole apologia that hav- 
ing admitted to an indiscriminate butchery the Ger- 
mans attempt to gain credit for preserving through- 
out its course the most tender sentiments. In fact 
they are surprised at their ov/n sensibility. *'I 
have subsequently often wondered," says a Major 
Schlick, ''that our men should have remained so 
calm in the face of such beasts. "^^ Major Bauer 

* G. W. B., Appendix C. " C 44. 



20 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

says, that he and his ''manifested a most notable 
kindness to women, old men and children"; so nota- 
ble that he suggests that ''it is worthy of recognition 
in the special circumstances." Major Bauer evi- 
dently thinks it a case for the Iron Cross. And in 
proof of this humanity he points out that the widows 
and orphans of the murdered husbands and fathers 
' ' all received coffee ' ' ^® from the field kitchen the 
next morning. Perhaps ^lajor Bauer bethinks him- 
self of a certain cup of cold water. 

The Children w^ere "quite happy." 

More than this, the children seem rather to have 
enjoyed the novel experience. A German staff-sur- 
geon whose gruesome task it was to search a heap of 
forty corpses, "women and young lads," who had 
been put up against a garden wall for execution, 
says : ^* 

** Under the heap I discovered a girl of about five years of 
age, and without anj injuries. I took her out and brought her 
down to the house where the women were. She took chocolate, 
was quite happy, and was clearly unaware of the seriousness of 
the situation.*' 

And with that amazing statement we may fitly 
leave this amazing narrative. 

Aerschot. 

The case of Dinant may be taken as typical. The 
evidence as to Louvain and Aerschot is not less in- 

" C (Summary Report) . 
"C51. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES Bl 

credible. We are asked to believe that at Aerschot ^^ 
the population of a small town suddenly rose in arms 
against a whole brigade, although the population was 
quite unprotected — ''we ascertained that there was 
no enemy in the neighbourhood. " ^^ To explain this 
surprising and suicidal impulse the Germans produce 
— it is their only evidence — the statement of a Cap- 
tain Karge, that he had ** heard rumours from vari- 
ous German officers" that the Belgian Government, 
* ' in particular the King of the Belgians, ' * had decreed 
that every male Belgian was to do the German Army 
**as much harm as possible." **It is said that such 
an order was found on a captured Belgian soldier." 
Strangely enough, the order is not produced — not a 
word of it. Also, *'an officer told me that he himself 
had read on a church door of a place near Aerschot 
that the Belgians were not allowed to hold captured 
German officers on parole, but were bound to shoot 
them." He adds that he ** cannot repeat the words 
of this officer exactly. ' ' ^^ 

^° The story of Aerschot is peculiarly horrible. It was here 
that the priest was placed against the wall with his arms 
raised above his head; when he let them fall through weari- 
ness, the German soldiers brought the butt-ends of their rifles 
down upon his feet. He was kept there for hours, and aa 
German soldiers passed they used him as a lavatory and a 
latrine until he was covered with filth. Eventually they shot 
him. This is but one of many such horrors (see the Bryce 
Eeport, Appendix, pages 29, 46. See also the fourth and fifth 
Belgian Eeports). The German White Book admits (Appendix 
A 2) that "every third man was shot." 

"^ Appendix A 5. 

** Appendix A 3. 



22 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Louvain. 

Let us now turn to Louvain. ''The insurrection 
of the town of Louvain," say the authors of the 
White Book with some naivete, "against the German 
garrison and the punishment which was meted out 
to the town have found a long-drawn-out echo in the 
whole world." Some twenty-eight thousand words 
are therefore devoted to establishing the thesis that 
the German troops in occupation of the town were 
the victims of a carefully organised, long premedi- 
tated, and diabolically executed attack on the part of 
the inhabitants assisted by the Garde Civique. Thus : 

**We are evidently dealing with a carefully planned assault 
■which was carried on for several days with the greatest obsti- 
nacy. The long duration of the insurrection against the Ger- 
man military power in itself disposes of any planless action 
committed by individuals in excitement. The leadership of the 
treacherous revolt must have lain in the hands of a higher 
authority. ' ' — Summarising Eeport. 

Great emphasis is laid on the formidable nature 
of the attack and the heavy odds against which the 
Germans had to contend. The fire of the Belgians 
was ''murderous" (D 11, D 13), "fearful" 
(D 9), "violent" (D 36), "furious" (D 41); it 
was supported by machine-guns (D 28, 29, 37, 38, 
40) and hand-grenades (D 46), and was materially 
assisted by Belgian soldiers in disguise (Appendix 
D 1, 19, 38), and by the Garde Civique (D 45, 46), 
who occupied houses with the most "elaborate prep- 
arations." In spite of this careful preparation the 
German troops, who had been in the town six days 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 23 

and had there established the Head-quarters of a 
whole Army Corps (the 9th Reserve Corps), were 
so impressed by the ** extraordinarily good'* behav- 
iour of the inhabitants that on the evening of August 
25th, about 7.30 or 8 p.m., they were taken completely 
by surprise. *'It was impossible to foresee," says 
Lieutenant von Sandt (D 8), "that the inhabitants 
were planning an assault." Other witnesses say, 
however, that **a remarkable number of young 
men" were observed congregating in the streets some 
hours beforehand. None the less the German au- 
thorities exhibited an ingenuous trustfulness and, 
what is even more remarkable, a cotaplete disregard 
of the most ordinary police precautions, which will 
come as a surprise to anyone who has studied the 
German Proclamations and the drastic measures usu- 
ally taken by them immediately upon their occupa- 
tion of a town. 

A "murderous" attack ; German casualties — five. 

Such was the situation when at seven o'clock on 
a summer evening (August 25th) of notorious mem- 
ory, the deep-laid plans of the Belgian authorities 
suddenly and murderously revealed themselves. A 
German company of Landsturm ^^ was marching 
through the town; the main body of the German 
troops quartered there were engaged several miles 
away, and only a few details remained in the city. 
This small body of unsuspecting soldiers — a company 

"'The 1st Company of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the 
Neusa Mobile Landsturm. 



24 ger:max atrocities 

numbers not more than two or three hundred men — 
were suddenly set upon, at a signal given by rockets, 
by trained marksmen of the Belgian Army and the 
Garde Civique, disguised as civilians, acting with the 
aid of machine-guns and hand-grenades and actively 
assisted by the greater part of a large civilian popu- 
lation. The fire, as various soldiers of the Landsturm 
testify, was not only carefully controlled and di- 
rected, but was "murderous*' in the extreme. Yet, 
after carefully searching through their depositions, 
we find that only ^'five ynen of the company were 
icounded*' (D S) I Lieutenant Sandt and Dr. Berg- 
hausen feel constrained to explain these remarkably 
light casualties. They can only account for them by 
saying that in spite of the "carefully planned" and 
disciplined attack the Belgians, shooting from care- 
fully chosen positions, shot "too high*' (D S\ "at 
night" (D S, D 9} although the light at eight o'clock 
on an August evening is usually remarkably good, 
and one of the witnesses (D 26} says that at S p.m- 
it was "fairly light." The company appear to have 
disarmed the infuriated Belgians with remarkable 
ease, goiog into the houses two or three at a time 
(D 9\ and finding the occupants apparently as docile 
as sheep, so that although found with arms in their 
hands they allowed themselves to be led out in "a 
crowd" and "immediately shot" (D 44\ In one 
case, on entering an inn, the Germans found ' " behind 
the bar. a waiter," who had apparently taken up 
this strong strategical position alone with "a ease 
for shot placed by his side with the corresponding 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 25 

ammunition." He also allowed himself to be led 
forth like a lamb to the slaughter (D 37). 

Contradictory witnesses. 

It is extraordinary also that although this mur- 
derous and carefully planned attack began at 7.30 
C'l had just finished my soup," says Major Ton 
Manteuffel, who sat down to dinner at 7.30 — (Ap- 
pendix D 3), or at 8 p.m. (D 6), yet at 9 p.m., says 
Corporal Hohne, who entered the town with his regi- 
ment at that hour (D 36), ''the conduct of the civil- 
ians was quiet and not unfriendly," and his regi- 
ment w^as allowed to march right into the town — ''up 
till then nothing noteworthy had occurred." A 
N.C.O. of the same battalion says that "between 9 
and 10 p.m." the Belgians were standing about the 
streets; all was "quiet," and they were "not un- 
friendly" (D 36). Another witness heard nothing 
till "9 or 9.30" (D 25). Another says (D 45) the 
signal was given at "9 o'clock." To the same effect 
another soldier (D 18). What is even more remark- 
able is the statement of Major von Klewitz that at 
4 a.m. the next morning, after the Landsturm had 
cleared the houses, the infatuated inhabitants opened 
fire on an Army Corps which appears to have arrived 
in the interval and was then "moving out to battle" 
(D 2) ; and the presence of a whole brigade of Land- 
wehr (D 1) does not seem to have exercised any re- 
straining influence on these insane civilians. Like 
flies to wanton boys was a whole Army Corps to the 
burgesses of Louvain, who killed it for their sport. 



26 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

The German authorities contend that, with intermit- 
tent executions, they tolerated this kind of thing for 
two whole days. They appear, however, to have 
borne a charmed life — the chief casualties among 
them were horses. Battalion Surgeon Georg Berg- 
hausen, in particular, who records as a remarkable 
fact that he once paid a hotelkeeper C'to please him 
and his employees") for meals he had ordered, waa 
"repeatedly shot at'' the whole length of a street 
but never so much as hit. He thinks this was due 
to its being so dark, though whenever the witnesses 
are concerned to testify that the firing was undoubt- 
edly by civilians, or by soldiers disguised as such, 
they can see ''quite plainly." 

The Priests. 

Never since the Day of Pentecost was there such a 
confusion of tongues. One witness labours to prove 
that no executions took place without a most decorous 
court-martial in the station square, the same soldier 
combining apparently the office of prosecutor and 
judge (D 38) ; another says that of "a crowd" of 
persons taken out of a house, the males were ''im- 
mediately shot" (D 44) ; yet a third says that a body 
of hostages were placed in front of a machine-gun 
with an intimation that they would be shot as a mat- 
ter of course if there were any more disturbance 
(D 37). It is admitted that a hundred civilians were 
shot, "including ten or fifteen priests" (D 38). 
One German witness says it is all the fault of the 
priests (D 38) ; another says it's the fault of the 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 27 

Garde Civique (D 45) — both being apparently at 
some pains to exculpate the unhappy civilians. The 
quality of the evidence against the priests (and the 
civil population) may be gathered from the following 
deposition (D 42) of Captain Hermansen. He in- 
terviewed a priest who, he says, had behaved well on 
one occasion: 

"I rejoined that if his clerical brethren had acted in that 
[the same] manner, the Belgians and we would have been 
spared many unpleasant experiences. He did not contradict 
me."— (1)^2.) 

In witness whereof Captain von Vethacke comes 
forward and says: 

"In 80 far as priests were shot they too had been found 
guilty by the court. I came to know the priest mentioned by 
Captain Hermansen at the end of his declaration. He made 
an excellent impression on me also; and he did not contradict 
me either, when I expressed to him my opinion that certain of 
the clergy had stirred up the people and taken part in the at- 
tack."— (D 43.) 

Truly, a remarkable example of the argumentum 
db silentio! Perhaps the unfortunate priest remem- 
bered what happened to Faithful when he contra- 
dicted Chief Justice Hategood. 

All the evidence adduced, where it is not that of 
the German soldiers, is of this character. It is all 
hearsay, the Belgian witnesses quoted are invariably 
anonjrmous, and there are only five of them at that 
(D 30, 34, 37, 38, 42). At Bueken **the clergymen'* 
are accused of having incited the population to attack 



28 GER^LIN ATROCITIES 

the Germau troops. The proof adduced is that the 
priest "left the church'' when the firiug began! 

What is the true explanation? 

One thing emerges quite clearly from these dis- 
orderly depositions and that is a great confusion of 
mind. The evidence from Belgian sources, very care- 
fully sifted by a Committee^* (presided over by Sir 
Mackenzie Chalmers) of the Belgian Commission 
and. independently, by the Bryce Conunittee,^^ is to 
the effect that two detachments of German troops 
fired on one another and then threw the blame on the 
innocent inhabit<ints. This explanation certainly 
receives some countenance from the German deposi- 
tions, which, as I have said, exhibit a kind of turbu- 
lent confusion. The N.C.O.'s of two battalions which 
entered the town at 9 p.m. say ''the noise and con- 
fusion was very great, ' ' and ' ' to what extent our fire 
was returned I cannot say"; "we shot the street 
lamps to pieces"; "our opponents were not to be 
seen since it was already dark," and "we only saw 
the flash of the discharges and supposed that they 
came from the houses " (D 3(3, 37) ; and here again, 
as in the case of the company of Landsturm pre- 
viously referred to, only "five men" were known 
to be hit. DuriQg the greater part of the day (Au- 

•* Belgian Collected Exports, Tenth Export, page 127. 

"Bryce Eeport (popular edition), pages 29—36. And see 
the diarv. No. 14 of Appendix to Bryce Keport recording the 
shooting of German troops by other German tjoops; to the 
same effect another diary quoted on page 41 of Bryce EeporU 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 29 

gust 25tli) there was only ^« one company of Land- 
sturm and sixty men of a railway detachment in the 
town (D 8). It is surely rather remarkable that 
*'a well-prepared and elaborately designed attack 
on the part of the civil population'^ (D 41) should 
have halted all day and then begun either at or a 
short time before (the German evidence is, as we 
have seen, very conflicting) German reinforcements 
were entering the town, and then tarried again until 
the whole or the greater part of a German Army 
Corps had arrived : the only thing that the German 
evidence proves is the sinister fact that the arrival of 
each detachment of German forces coincided with 
renewed massacres of the civilian population. Such 
is the ugly story that emerges from these ill-nour- 
ished and contradictory testimonies. 

Such is the German White Book. I think it is 
not too much to say that it bears the stamp of the 
forger's hand upon it, the same hand that forged the 
Ems telegram and garbled the Belgian documents 
captured in Brussels. It was conceived in iniquity 
and brought forth in falsehood. It confesses, but 
does not avoid. 

»« " No other troops were stationed at Louvain on that daj. 
-(D8.) 



30 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

m 

GERMAN CREDIBILITY — A REVIEW OF THE EVIDENCE 

The German Diaries. 

I have allowed the German White Book to speak 
for itself. It is a well-known rule of law that a 
party is ** estopped" from denying his own admis- 
sions, and the incriminating character of these ad- 
missions is, as we have seen, conclusive against the 
German Government. Had I desired, I could have 
reinforced it by other evidence, also emanating from 
German sources, in the shape of Proclamations and 
diaries (of which I have seen some hundreds at the 
Ministry of War in Paris), which amply corroborate 
the conclusions already arrived at. The German 
pretence of a judicial inquiry into the guilt or in- 
nocence of the victims of their sanguinary fury is 
refuted by the simple fact that their own Procla- 
mations frankly intimate that the principle of deci- 
mation and of vicarious punishment will be adopted, 
in the case of infractions, whether real or assumed, 
of what they choose to call their commands. A 
hostage may fail to turn up as a substitute, an in- 
habitant may be found with a litre of benzol unac- 
counted for, another may dig potatoes in the field, 
yet another may fail to salute or to hold his hands 
up with sufficient promptitude — and the penalty 
decreed is invariably the same: he, or a substitute, 
will be shot — ''the innocent will suffer with the 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 31 

guilty,^ ^^"^ Not only so, but as a rule no attempt 
was made to discover whether any offence had been 
committed or not. In the diary of a German officer 
which came into my possession an entry recording 
the undiscriminating butchery of some two hundred 
civilians concluded with the otiose remark: **In 
future there ought to be an inquiry into their guilt 
instead of shooting them." An unpublished Procla- 
mation in my possession, which was handed to me 
by the maire of a town now in our occupation, de- 
clared that the civils, '*ou peutetre les militaires en 
civil,'' had fired on the troops; the parenthesis 
damns its authors beyond redemption. And when 
all other tests fail, when every international con- 
vention has been repudiated, there still remains the 
elementary rule, which not only jurists but soldiers 
have always emphasized, that in reprisals and retri- 
bution there should always be some proportion be- 
tween the offence and its punishment. What then 
is to be thought of the admission of a German sol- 
dier that sixty villagers, including women in travail, 
were shot "because," he adds laconically, *'they had 
telephoned to the enemy"? The critic who carefully 
collates the diaries, published and unpublished, will 
find overwhelming evidence of indiscriminate and 
lawless butchery — ''Befehl ergangen samtliche mann- 
liche Personen zu erschiessen . . . Ein schrecklicher 
Sonntag" (Order passed to shoot all the male in- 

" See the Sixth Belgian Report and, in particular, the Proc- 
lamations issued at Hasselt, Namur, Wavre, Grivegnee, and 
Brussels. 



32 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

habitants ... A frightful Sunday) ; ''Ein schreck- 
liches Blutbad" (A frightful blood-bath); ''Sam- 
tliche Rechtsnormen sind aufgelost" (All the rules 
of law are cast to the winds). And nothing is more 
instructive than to observe how each lays the blame 
for the worst outrages upon the other, while inci- 
dentally admitting those of his own unit. One says, 
*'It's the infantry who are to blame"; another says, 
**The pioneers are the worst and those brigands of 
artillerymen"; a third writes, "It's all the fault of 
the transport." The cumulative effect of these re- 
criminations is to inculpate the whole.^^ 

German Credibility. 

Quite apart from this inductive evidence there is 
the fact that the German Government is so tainted 
with the infamy of indisputable mendacity that no 
sober and impartial man can credit a single word of 
what it says. It has deliberately forged Belgian 
documents which have come into its possession in 
order to make out a case against the Belgian Gov- 
ernment ; ^^ it has repeatedly broken faith with the 
British Government and the Vatican ; ^^ it has abused 
the Geneva Convention in order to make use of a 

^ See, in particular, Les Violations des lois de la Guerre par 
VAllemagne, issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 
pages, 77, 92, 99, 100, 101, 119. 

"Press Bureau (Belgian communique), March 18th. The 
German authorities substituted the word *' convention " for 
*' conversation, " in order to convict Belgium of a secret treaty 
with England. 

*• Foreign Office communiques of May 20th and July 5th. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 33 

hospital ship as an instrument of war.*^ Berlin itself 
is one great factory of lies, and its official Press serv- 
ice, to quote the words of our Ambassador, ''a vast 
system of international blackmail. " ^^ As is the 
Government, so are the people. Its merchants forge 
manifests and falsify bills of lading in order to 
secure the immunity of their property from capture 
at sea.^^ A journal under German control ^^ has 
admitted that the stories of mutilation so industriously 
circulated by the German Government and its agents 
are entirely the product of hysterical *' suggestion. '' 
Often its pretexts are a shameless afterthought. In 
co-operation with the French authorities I was in- 
strumental in tracking down a now notorious order 
issued by a German Brigadier-General to butcher 
all the wounded who fell into German hands. At 
first its authenticity was denied by the German Gov- 
ernment, but, when it was established beyond doubt, 
they published a statement that a similar order had 

" The case of the Ophelia. 

"P. P. Cd. 7595. 

^ The case of the Iberia (Times Law Eeport, November 11th, 
1915). It is not the only one. 

** The International Review, published in Zurich, and con- 
trolled by a Committee consisting almost entirely of German 
Professors. Its title is obviously fraudulent. The June issue 
(page 14) contains an article of ingratiating impudence by a 
German psychologist discrediting all reports of atrocities, and, 
in order to prove their unreliability and justify the policy of 
the Beview in excluding them when they emanate from British, 
French, or Belgian sources, it attempts to disprove them all. 
On page 32 the writer refutes circumstantially the stories that 
German soldiers had had their eyes gouged out. 



34 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

been issued by one of our own Generals some twelve 
months ago. The excuse was as belated as it was 
mendacious, and to this day not the slightest proof 
has been adduced in support of it. 

The German authorities seem to suffer from a mal- 
ady which can only be described as moral perver- 
sion. It is a kind of moral insanity. In defending 
the sinking of the Lusitania with its freight of inno- 
cent women and children the German Government 
wrote: 

*'The case of the Lusitania shows with horrible clearness to 
what jeopardising of human lives the manner of war conducted 
by our adversaries leads. ^'*' 

This affectation of horror at the consequences of 
its own crimes and the imputation of the guilt of 
them to others is surely one of the most remarkable 
revelations of the moral obliquity of the German 
mind. Yet it by no means stands alone. The Proc- 
lamations, issued in Belgium, threaten the inhabi- 
tants with fire and sword, the scaffold and the firing- 
party, for the least infraction of the most trivial 
regulations, and then conclude with the aspersion 
that by such infraction they will commit ''the hor- 
rible crime" of compromising the existence of a 
whole community and placing it ''outside the pale 
of international law. ' ' *^ The man who omits to put 

*• Note transmitted on July 8th to the American Minister by 
Herr von Jagow. 

*" Proclamations issued at Namur and Wavre. — (Sixth Bel- 
gian Report.) 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 35 

his hands up with acrobatic promptitude will ''make 
himself guilty" of the penalty of death. All through 
the German utterances there runs an infatuated ob- 
session that the Germans enjoy a kind of moral pre- 
rogative in virtue of which they are entitled to vio- 
late all the laws which they rigidly prescribe for 
others.^'' We have lately had an example of this 
which is of supreme horror. The Power which has 
broken all laws, human and divine, sought to dignify 
its condemnation of Edith Cavell with all the pomp 
and circumstance of a tribunal of justice. While 
thousands of ravishers and spoilers go free, one 
woman, who had spent her life in ministries to such 
as were sick and afflicted, was handed over to the 
executioner. Truly, there has been no such trial in 
history since Barabbas was released and Christ led 
forth to the hill of Calvary. 

The Guilt of the German People. 

It is the fondest of delusions to imagine that all 
this blood-guiltiness is confined to the German Gov- 
ernment and the General Staff. The whole people 
is stained with it. The innumerable diaries of com- 
mon soldiers in the ranks which I have read betray 
a common sentiment of hate, rapine, and ferocious 
credulity.*^ Again and again English soldiers have 

^'' Ibid Proclamation issued at Grivegnee. See also Les Avis, 
Proclamations, et Nouvelles de la Guerre allemandes affiches a 
Bruxelles, for a copy of which I am indebted to my friend 
Colonel E. D. Swinton, D.S.O. ('< Eye-witness.") 

** The reader should also study the diaries given in the Bryce 
Appendix, in the French ofl&cial volume Les Violations, and in 



36 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

told me how their German captors delighted to offer 
them food in their famished state and then to snatch 
it away again. The progress of French, British, and 
Russian prisoners, civil as well as military, through 
Germany has been a veritable Calvary.*^ The help- 
lessness which in others would excite forbearance if 
not pity has in the German populace provoked only 
derision and insult.^*^ The "old gentleman with a 
grey beard and gold spectacles" who broke his um- 
brella over the back of a Russian lady (the wife of 
a diplomatist), the loafers who boarded a train and 
under the eyes of the indulgent sentries poked their 
fingers in the blind eye of a wounded Irishman who 
had had half his face shot away, the men and women 
who spat upon helpless prisoners and threatened 
them with death, the guards who prodded them with 
bayonets, worried them with dogs, and dispatched 

Professor Bedier's Les Crimes AUemands: expressions of pity 
are as rare as exultations that '*We live like God" are fre- 
quent. 

*• The full story will never be known, but the Russian Report, 
the Second French Eeport, the Belgian Reports (especially the 
Tenth), and the narrative of Major Vandeleur, published by 
the Foreign Office as a White Paper, together with the Report 
of the American Minister published on November 20th, 1915, 
may be referred to. 

^ The instances which follow are taken from official reports. 
I may add another illustration here published for the first time. 
A German soldier, recording the story of how the m-aire of a 
French town was torn from his home and carried off by the 
troops, writes: "In spite of his protests we put him into our 
company and made him march with us. He called us names 
and shouted and protested, and Jcept ils all in good spirits.*' 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 37 

those who could not keep up — these were not a Prus- 
sian caste, but the German people. What is to be 
thought of a people, one of whose leading journals 
publishes ^^ with approval the letter of a German 
officer describing 'Hhe brilliant idea" (ein guter 
Gedanke) which inspired him to place civilians on 
chairs in the middle of the street of a town attacked 
by the French and use them as a screen for his men, 
in spite of their ** prayers of anguish." 

New Russian Evidence. 

This question of the culpability of the German 
people, civilians and soldiers in the ranks, as distinct 
from the German Government, is one of supreme 
importance, and I would like to draw the reader's 
attention to the mass of unpublished evidence (from 
which some selections are given in Part VI. of the 
Documentary Chapter of this book) placed at my dis- 
posal by the Russian Embassy. In addition to the 
documents I have printed in that chapter — I refer 
the reader to No. 7 in particular — I will here quote 
the following unpublished deposition as to the con- 
duct of the German guards in a prison camp. These 
barbarities, it should be remembered, were not done 
in the heat of action, but represent the leisurely 
amusement of guards whose only provocation was the 
helplessness of the famished men in their charge. 

* ' In their leisure moments the German soldiers amused them- 
selves with practical joking at the expense of the prisoners. 
They announced that an extra portion of food would be given 

" The Munchner Neueste Nachrichten, October 7th, 1914. 



38 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

out, and when the Russians hurried to the kitchen, a whole pack 
of dogs were let loose on them. The animals flew at the pris- 
oners and dispersed them in all directions, while the Germans 
looked on and roared with laughter. Sometimes the prisoners 
were offered an extra ladle of soup, or piece of bread if they 
would expose their backs to a certain number of blows with a 
whip. Our hungry and tormented soldiers often bought an 
extra piece of bread at this price, and it was thrown to them 
as if they had been dogs.'' 

The Germans appear in the case of the Russian, as 
in that of the British, Belgian, and French prisoners, 
to have taken a malignant and bestial delight in out- 
raging their feelings of self-respect, and men were 
herded together day and night in cattle-trucks deep 
in manure, and forced to perform their natural func- 
tions where they stood, packed together so close that 
they could not sit and dared not lie down. At each 
station they were exhibited like a travelling menag- 
erie to the curiosity and insult of the populace. The 
quality of mercy was not shown even where one might 
most expect to find it, namely, at the hands of the 
German surgeons and nurses who wore the Red Cross. 
Here is the deposition of Vasili Tretiakov : 

"Having received no food for two days, the Eussian prison- 
ers, who fully expected to get some bread at this station, were 
gazing with hungry and longing looks into the distance, when 
they saw women dressed as Sisters of Mercy distributing bread 
and sausages to the German soldiers. One of these Sisters went 
up to the truck in which I was standing, and a Russian soldier 
at the door stretched out his hand for something to eat, but the 
woman simply struck it and smeared the soldier 's face with 
a piece of sausage. She then called all the prisoners 'Russian 
swine' and went away from the side of the train." 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 39 

Well may the Russian Government say in their 
covering communication that **the forms of punish- 
ment '* — if we can speak of punishment when no of- 
fence had been committed — ''remind one of the tor- 
tures of the Middle Ages." Other documents in my 
possession recite how the prisoners were harnessed to 
ploughs and carts, like cattle, and lashed with long 
leather whips; how a man who fainted from exhaus- 
tion was immediately bayoneted, while another who 
fell out of the ranks to pick up a rotten turnip shared 
a like fate; how wounded men were forced to stand 
naked for hours in the frost until gangrene set in, 
tied up for hours to posts with their toes just touch- 
ing the ground until, the blood rising to the head, 
copious haemorrhage took place from the nose, mouth, 
and ears ; how yet others who, exhausted with hunger 
and fatigue, could not keep up on the march were 
bayoneted or clubbed where they lay. As for the 
conduct of the German populace let the following 
speak for itself: 

"The peaceful inhabitants along the routes traversed in 
Germany showed the greatest hostility towards the prisoners, 
whom they reviled as 'Eussian swine and dogs.' Women and 
even children threw stones and sand at them, and spat right 
in their faces. . . . Even the wounded men were not spared by 
these demented Germans who struck them, pulled their mous- 
taches, and spat in their faces.'' 

The German Ideal — Europe in Chains. 

The conception of the educated classes of Germany 
as to the future of Europe we have on record : it is to 



40 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

be a tributary Europe, vast satrapies of subject popu- 
lations more rightless than the medieval villein, their 
language proscribed, their liberties disfranchised, 
their commerce prohibited, their lands expropriated, 
hewers of wood and drawers of water for the con- 
queror. The ill-disguised slavery under which Bel- 
gium ^2 and the occupied French Departments ^* 
groan to-day is to be perpetuated. The small nations 
of Europe are to exchange the protection of Europe 
for the suzerainty of Germany and to live under the 
German ** shield." Their territories are to be to 
Germany what the provinces were to Rome at her 
worst — great praedial estates, the peasantry of which 
are either to be ' ' cleared " or to remain as the menials 
of the conqueror. The German dream is the dream 
of the Latin historian who sighed for more provinces 
to conquer in order that liberty might be '* banished 
from the sight" ^* of those already under his heel. 
What Germany cannot annex she will ruin, so that 
borne down by hea^^ indemnities France shall never 
be able to lift her head again. Such are the ** terms 
of peace" proclaimed by the German Professors, a 
body of men who, it should be remembered, in Ger- 
many hold their chairs at the pleasure of the State 
and are, in fact, a branch of the Civil Service. They 
therefore speak as men having authority.^^ 

"Press Bureau (Belgian communiques), August 5th. 
" French official communiques, October 12th, August 1st. 
" Felut e conspectu libertas tolleretur (Tacitus, Agricola, 
Chapter 24). 
"What I have here written is, without exaggeration, the 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 41 

A Moral Distemper. 

I have been told that there are still some individ- 
uals in England who cherish the idea that this vast 
orgy of blood, lust, rapine, hate, and pride is lq some 
peculiar way merely the Bacchanalia of troops un- 
used to the heady bouquet of the wines of Cham- 
pagne or, stranger still, that it is the mental aberra- 
tion of a people seduced by idle tales into these 
courses by its rulers. It is no part of my task to 
find explanations. But if the reader is astonished, 
as well he may be, at the disgusting repetition of 
stories of rape and sodomy let him study the statis- 
tics of crime in Germany during the first decade of 
this century, issued by the Imperial Government; he 
will find in them much to confirm the impression that 
the whole people is infected with some kind of moral 
distemper.^^ The seduction of a people by its rulers 
is impossible; such hypnotic susceptibility to the in- 
fluences of ''suggestion" would, of itself, be a symp- 

substanee of the Manifesto issued by the German Professors in 
August last. For the text, see the Morning Post, August 13th 
and 14th. And to the same effect is the speech of the Imperial 
Chancellor in the Eeichstag a few days later (for report, see 
The Times, August 21st). 

'^^Long ago — in 1870 — Fustel de Coulanges pointed out that 
the crime which, to use the words of our law, ''is not to be 
named among Christians," flourished in Berlin as it flourished 
nowhere else, and the immorality of latter-day Germany was the 
subject of a mournful lamentation by Treitschke in his old age. 
An acute student of modern Germany, Dr. Arthur Shadwell, 
also remarks on the low commercial morality of German mer- 
chants (see the Nineteenth Century and After for August, 
1915). 



42 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

torn of mental degeneration in the people itself. It 
is impossible to believe that the most highly educated 
nation in Europe is either so ignorant or so credulous 
as such an explanation would suggest. It is not in 
their ignorance but in their turpitude that the clue 
to these barbarities is to be found. This is a sombre 
fact which has to be faced or these appalling records 
will have been sifted and published in vain. The 
problem of explanation is ultimately one for the an- 
thropologist rather than the lawyer, and there may be 
force in the contention of those who believe that the 
Prussian is not a member of the Teutonic family at 
all, but a ''throw-back" to some Tartar stock. Cer- 
tain it is that he exhibits an insensibility to the feel- 
ings of others which is only equalled by his extreme 
sensitiveness as to his own.^^ This morbid insensibil- 
ity is, of course, the secret of German ** Terrorism, " 
and of the immense influence which it has exerted 
on the theory and practice of war among the German 
nation. It explains their singular ingenuity in find- 
ing means to an end, and between the German trooper 
who dips a baby's head into scalding water in order 
to get more coffee from its mother'^ to the com- 
mandant who at the point of the bayonet thrusts a 

"It is a curious fact, attested by the evidence of a large 
number of British and French soldiers who have been in action, 
that the German soldier often exhibits the most abject fear 
when confronted individually with the bayonet, going down on 
his knees, and whining ^'Kamerad," "Mercy,'' and such like 
lachrymose appeals. 

"Bryce Appendix, ''Depositions taken by Professor Mor- 
gan/' page 195. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 43 

living screen of priests, old men, and women with 
babes at the breast ^^ between his own troops and 
those of the enemy there is a difference of degree 
rather than of kind. Similarly the dark passage in 
the German War Book which hints that there may be 
occasions on which it will be profitable to massacre 
prisoners of war reveals the same quality of mind as 
the order to shoot helpless sailors who are struggling 
for their lives in the sea.^^ All things are lawful 
which are expedient, and if your enemy has ties of 
affection, the better he lends himself to your belliger- 
ent exploitation. Mentem mortalia tangunt — human 
things touch the heart — acquires for the German Staff 
a new and sinister significance. Every tender feeling 
that their enemy has becomes a hostage for his tract- 
ability, because it can be violated if he is contuma- 
cious. His churches can be profaned, his priests mur- 
dered, his boys driven into exile, his women-folk 
handed over to the lust of a licentious soldiery, and 
his home destroyed. If his troops defeat one in the 
field, the civilian population can be made to pay for 
it with their lives,^^ so that eventually he may be dis- 
armed not by defeat but by horror. His own human- 
ity will be his undoing. Not fear but anguish will 
bring him to his knees. 

This is the German doctrine, secreted in the pages 

••Belgian Reports (Tenth Report), page 119. To the same 
effect the British and French Reports, passim. 

°** Admiralty Memorandum, August 21st. Commander's re- 
port on the stranding of E13. 

" See Belgian Reports and Bryce Report. 



44 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

of many a German manual,^- and now published to 
the world in the German Proclamations and the evil 
deeds which they both excuse and provoke. This it 
is which has made the German nation, in the words 
of Lord Rosebery, ''the enemy of the human race," 
and has caused the very name of this bestial and 
servile people to stink in the nostrils of mankind. 



IV 

THE FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE QUESTION 
OF RETRIBUTION 

The Dissolution of Europe. 

Many years ago the most distin^ished of the mod- 
ern school of French historians wrote a remarkable 
essay on the subject of ''Diplomacy and Progress." ^^ 
He knew Europe as few had known it ; he had spent 
his life in its chancelleries and its archives, and his 
wisdom was only equalled by his knowledge, for he 
had studied not only books but men. In that essay 

" The "writer has brought together a number of such pas- 
sages in his preface to the German War Book. For others see 
Les Usages de la Guerre et la doctrine de VEtat-Major Alle- 
maud, by Professor Charles Andler (Paris, 1915). Also Chap- 
ter I. of "Les Cmautes Allemarides, Bequisitoire d'un neutre,'* 
by L6on Maccas (Paris, 1915). And more especially the ex- 
tremely valuable book published, at the moment of going to 
press, by an eminent French scholar, the Marquis de Dampierre, 
L'Allemagne et le Droit des Gens, a copy of which has just 
reached me. 

"'Sorel, Essais d'histoire et de critique, p. 271. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 45 

he speculated as to the effect of the progress of me- 
chanical invention in the arts of war upon the pros- 
pects of European peace, and he confessed to a 
mournful depression. But the source of his appre- 
hension was not Europe but Asia. He foresaw the 
possibility of some potent Oriental nation awaking 
from its secular meditations and applying itself in a 
single generation to an apprenticeship in those me- 
chanical arts which are no longer the peculiar mys- 
tery and the prerogative of the Western world. A 
nation thus acquiring the destructive resources of 
the West, while retaining the peculiar morality of the 
East — its ruthlessness, its contempt for human life, 
its sombre fatalism, its indifference to personal lib- 
erty, its chicanery, its love of espionage — might, he 
apprehended, fall upon Europe in a catastrophic 
assault as unforeseen as it would be unprovoked, and 
threaten her with destruction. 

The catastrophe has fallen, but the foes of Europe 
have been those of her own household, and we have 
discovered with a shock of dismay that the comity of 
European, nations has harboured a Power which is 
European in nothing but in name, and is more com- 
pletely alien to Western ideals than the tribes of Af- 
ghanistan. A hybrid nation of this type which is in- 
tellectual without being refined, which can discipline 
its mind but cannot control its appetites, which can 
acquire the idiom of Europe and yet retain the in- 
stincts of Asia or rather of some pre- Asiatic horde, 
presents the greatest problem that has ever perplexed 
the civilisation of man. It is like an intellectual 



46 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

savage who has learnt the language and studied the 
dress and deportment of polite society, but all the 
while nurtures dark atavisms and murderous im- 
pulses in the centres of his brain. The subtle danger 
of the presence of such a nation in the European 
comity is that it uses the language of that interna- 
tional society, and yet all the while means something 
different, and tliat with every appearance of solemn 
subscription to its forms and treaties it is making 
mental reservations and ''economies'* which strike 
at the very root of them. 

The Casuistry of the Intellectual Savage. 

In the hands of such a nation an international con- 
vention is not merely idle and impotent; the conven- 
tion itself becomes positively dangerous, simply be- 
cause it can be perverted. It can be used to invest 
the most barbarous acts with a specious plausibility, 
and can be turned against the very people whom it 
was designed to protect. Any one who takes the 
trouble to study the official proclamations of the 
German military authorities, or the introductory 
memorandum to the German ^Yhite Book, cannot fail 
to be struck by this. A civilian who fires on the en- 
emy forfeits under international law the privileges 
of a non-combatant. The rule means as much as it 
says, and no more ; it does not impose on a civil com- 
munity the obligation to prove that it is a non-com- 
batant. But in nine out of ten German proclama- 
tions the rule is invoked as an excuse for involving 
a whole community in responsibility with their lives 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 47 

for the acts or omissions, real or alleged, of single in- 
dividuals — "the innocent will suffer with the 
guilty"^* — and the ''law of nations" is invoked to 
put a whole population ''outside the pale" of it.^* 
At one stroke we are carried back to the days of the 
blood-feud and of vicarious punishment, and the law 
of nations is perverted from an instrument of prog- 
ress to an organon of bloody sophistries. So, too, 
the Hague Convention which requires that requisi- 
tions of supplies should not be made without giving 
receipts is observed in the letter and violated in the 
spirit; receipts are given, but they are forged. The 
obligation of a treaty guaranteeing the neutrality of 
Belgium is admitted, but a false charge and a falsified 
document is advanced to justify its breach. A bri- 
gade order to kill all prisoners is first denied, and 
then when denial becomes futile, a fictitious order of 
a prior date is alleged against us in order to dignify 
the real order with the sanction of "reprisals." De- 
fenceless merchantmen are attacked and sunk at 
first sight, and then when they carry guns for their 
protection their precautions for defence are used as 
a retrospective pretext for attack. The same curious 
casuistry is invoked to excuse the attacks on Scar- 
borough and London, and the Hague Convention is 

•* German Proclamation of August 27th, 1914, at Wavre (Bel- 
gian Reports, No. 6, page 82). In the Proclamation at Namur 
of August 25th, 1914, the German commandant, von Bulow, 
warns the inhabitants against "the horrible crime" of com- 
promising by their conduct the existence of the town and its 
inhabitants ! 

~ Ibid., page 81. 



48 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

interpreted, in defiance of its authors, to support the 
plea that whatever barbarity is not expressly prohib- 
ited is thereby condoned. 

Germany as a Moral Pervert. 

It is this terrible perversion, this prostitution of 
words until, to quote a classical expression of Thu- 
cydides, they have lost their meaning in relation to 
things, that seems to me the most intractable problem 
that we have to face. To my mind it is this patholog- 
ical aspect of the German temperament which pre- 
sents a far more serious obstacle to a restoration of 
the European comity based on the readmission of 
Germany to membership than the German dogma of 
war. You may, perhaps, extirpate a dogma but you 
cannot alter a temperament. To regard Germany 
as the misguided pupil of a military caste which alone 
stands in the way of her reformation seems to me to 
ignore the volume of evidence as to the complicity of 
officers and men in those orgies of outrage. I cannot 
avoid the conclusion that the whole people is infected 
with a kind of moral distemper. 

* * Look, Madame, ' ' said a German soldier to a French woman 
who witnessed the execution of three poor travellers who with 
their hands tied behind their backs with napkins were led into 
a field close to her house and shot by six soldiers under the com- 
mand of a German officer, ''Look! isn't it fine! See them 
shoot some French civilians. A fine feat that! All the others 
ought to be killed in the same way. ' ' ^ 

The sentiment is typical; German diaries are full 
*^Se6 p. 123. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 49 

of such things. Nor is it reasonable to suppose that 
the kind of teaching which has made Clausewitz and 
Treitschke and Bernhardi the gospel of the German 
people, and has found authoritative expression in the 
German War Book, could have commanded the pres- 
tige which it does command in Germany if it had not 
found a people apt and eager by temperament to re- 
ceive it. Germany stands alone among modem na- 
tions in extending its official conception, and even its 
academic analysis ^'^ of war, to include the deliberate 
*'terrorization" of non-combatants. She alone has 
taught, both by precept and example, that there are 
no limitations to what is justifiable by the exigencies 
of war. ^^C'est la guerre' ' is the common answer of 
German officers when implored by the victims to stop 
the lust and rapine of their men.^^ It follows from 
all this that war as taught and practised by the Ger- 
mans exceeds in savagery even the practices of the 
ancient world, in which it was thought the mark of 
barbarism to poison wells, desecrate temples and mur- 
der priests — practices which the Germans have not 
hesitated to pursue. Incitement to assassination, 
which was thought a mean and dishonourable thing 
by the Roman mind,^^ is specifically recommended in 
the German War Book. 

«" Holtzendorff, IV., 378. 

^French Reports, Rapports et Troces-verbaux, p. 40. 

^^ cf. the reply of the Roman Senate to the offer of a Ger- 
man chief to poison Arminius, '^Responsum esse non frauds 
neque oceultis, sed palam et armatum populum Romanum hostea 
suos uleisci. " Tacit., Ann., II,, p. 88. 



50 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

In the ancient world the vanquished were regarded 
as rightless, and whole populations were sold into 
slavery after they had been decimated by the slaugh- 
ter of their leading citizens. The German practice 
is not intrinsically different; municipal magistrates, 
parish priests, and one in three of the civil population 
have been butchered, many civilians carried off to 
Germany to work in the fields, and those who are left 
behind forced to dig trenches for their captors while 
their wives and daughters are handed over to the lust 
of the soldiery, and their movable property trans- 
ported. It is difficult to see how this differs in any- 
thing but name from the tragic fate of those unhappy 
communities who in the laconic phrase of the ancient 
world passed suh corona and were sold by auction. 
All this differs from the practices of the ancient 
world in nothing except a certain affectation, the one 
concession to modern sentiment being a studious def- 
amation by the Germans of the people whom they 
ravish and despoil. It seems to me that bad as the 
German crimes are the German justification for them 
is even worse. For it betrays a real corruption of 
mind. The ancients were often brutal but they were 
never hypocritical. 

The Bankruptcy of The Hague Conventions. 

What hope then can there be of a restoration of the 
comity of European nations, and the re-establishment 
of the Hague Conventions? I confess I can see none. 
The German Empire was conceived in duplicity and 
brought forth in war, and three times within living 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 51 

memory, as Sir Edward Grey has reminded us, she 
has wantonly provoked war in Europe in pursuance 
of her predatory designs. I can see no way out of 
the present travail except an armed peace, with the 
elimination as its basis for a long time to come of 
Germany from the councils of Europe. What hope 
of understanding can there be with a nation which 
does not observe the ordinary rules of diplomatic 
intercourse, that jus fetiale which even the ancient 
world regarded as sacred? The world has seen with 
stupefaction — there has, I think, been no such case 
for hundreds of years — the Ambassador of the Aus- 
trian Government taking advantage of his immunities 
and sovereign character to suborn seditious conspir- 
acy in the State to which he was accredited ? "^^ It 
is difficult to believe that this case now stands alone. 
Conventions with such a Power are both a delusion 
and a snare. They delude us with an appearance of 
agreement where none exists. In unscrupulous 
hands, the more precise and technical they are, the 
more do they lend themselves to casuistry, adding, 
as some one has said, the terrors of law to the horrors 
of war. I am afraid that such conventions are now 
hopelessly discredited. I doubt if we shall hear very 
much in future of the distinction between combat- 
ants and non-combatants, or of the sanctity of the 
levee en masse as a medium of lawful transition 
from the one to the other ; he who studies the German 

^""See the British White Paper of September 21st, 1915; 
''Austrian and German papers found in possession of James 
_F. J. Archibald, Falmouth, August 30th, 1915." 



52 GER:^L\N ATROCITIES 

White Book on hostilities in Belgium will see how 
easily a belligerent, if he be so minded, can dispose 
with a quibble of the obligations to respect an im- 
provised force which has *'no time" to organise. A 
belligerent contemplating a sudden attack and a bel- 
ligerent having to meet it will entertain very different 
conceptions as to what is meant by ''no time." "War 
has, indeed, come to be, as von der Goltz prophesied 
it would be, a war not between armies but between 
peoples, and we are further than ever from the oft- 
quoted maxim of Rousseau that ''War is not a rela- 
tion of Man to ]\Ian but of States to States," in which 
particular individuals are enemies only by the acci- 
dent of a uniform. That was the voice of Individu- 
alism; but States grow more and more coUectivist, 
and never so coUectivist as in war. If, as an eminent 
writer has remarked, "out of the inner life of a na- 
tion comes its foreign policy," so, we may add, out 
of its municipal law, its military usages, and its eco- 
nomic necessities will come its construction of inter- 
national law. 

The Effect on International Law. 

It surely cannot be too clearly recognised that 
Germany's successive violations of the laws of war 
have brought the whole fabric down like a house of 
cards. When the Germans began to sink neutral 
merchantmen by way of vindicating what they were 
pleased to call the freedom of the seas, England was 
forced to jettison much of that famous Declaration 
of London, which seemed at one time to be as com- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 53 

plete an expression of a consensus of international 
opinion as the world of jurists had yet attained. We 
have gone further, as we were bound to do, and have 
so extended the theory of blockade as to qualify very 
considerably the Declaration of Paris. The Foreign 
Office has supported these departures by the logic of 
reprisals — in my humble opinion very properly — ^but 
** reprisals" are, juridically speaking, a kind of coun- 
sel of despair. In books on international law they 
receive a kind of shame-faced recognition ; their place 
is always at the end and the chapter devoted to them 
is often brief and generally apologetic. For the jurist 
knows that they partake of the character of law about 
as much as trial by battle. The voice of America is a 
voice crying in the wilderness; both groups of bel- 
ligerents deny the American contention that peace, 
and with it the commerce of neutrals, should govern 
the construction of the rules of war. How can it be 
otherwise in a struggle for existence? I very much 
doubt whether, for a long time to come, international 
lawyers can afford to assume, as they have been in the 
habit of doing, that peace, not war, is the normal con- 
ditions of nations. A nation which like Germany will 
not admit your major premises will certainly reject 
your conclusions when it suits her convenience. The 
dilemma therefore is inexorable : we can readmit Ger- 
many to international society and lower our standard 
of International Law to her level, or we can exclude 
her and raise it. There is no third course. 

These are the hard facts to which any one who at- 
tempts to take stock of the present situation and 



54 GERIVIAN ATROCITIES 

immediate prospects of International Law must 
address himself. International Law rests on a rec- 
iprocity of obligation; if one belligerent fails to 
observ^e it the other is, as a mere matter of self- 
preservation, released from its observance towards 
him, and is bound not by law but by morality, by his 
own conception of what he owes to his own self- 
respect. It is weU that our own conception has 
been rather in advance of International Law 
than behind it, and long may it so remain. 
But in proportion as our conception is high 
and the German conception is low, it seems to me 
incumbent on us to place our hopes for the future 
in the strength of our right arm and in that alone. 
And if, in Burke's noble phrase, we are to consider 
ourselves for the future "embodied with Europe" so 
that, sympathetic with the adversity or the happiness 
of mankind, we feel that nothing human is alien to 
us, then we must be prepared to support our treaty 
guarantees of the independence of the small nations 
with an adequate armed force ; otherwise they will re- 
gard our friendship as an equivocal and compromis- 
ing thing. If we are to offer them the protection of 
Europe in place of the suzerainty of Germany, we 
must be in a position to honour our promissory notes 
or they will indeed be but a scrap of paper — a cruel 
and otiose encouragement to the weak to defy the 
strong. 

The German as Outlaw. 
As for Germany, I can see little hope except in a 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 55 

sentence of outlawry. Mere black-listing of the 
names of responsible German commanders, although 
worth doing (and I have reason to believe that at tho 
French War Office it is being done) with a view to 
retribution, is not going to change the German char- 
acter. We shall have to revise our notions of both 
municipal and international law as regards her. The 
tendency of English law has long been, as an acute 
jurist has pointed out,^^ to lay more emphasis on 
domicile than on nationality, the disabilities of the 
alien have been diminished almost to vanishing-point, 
and British citizenship itself could be had almost for 
the asking. Not of it need the alien knocking at our 
hospitable doors say, in the words of the chief cap- 
tain, ''With a great sum obtained I this freedom." 
It has been made disastrously cheap. All that is 
likely to be changed. It is not a little significant that 
already the courts have begun to take judicial notice 
of the peculiar morality of the German and have 
expressly made it the basis of a decision extending the 
conception of what constitutes a prisoner of war.'^^ 
And alone among the emergency legislation the dras- 
tic Aliens Act is not limited in its preamble, as are 
the other Acts, to the duration of the war. These 
things are portents. It is impossible to believe that 
a revolution more catastrophic than anything through 

" Professor Salmond in the Law Quarterly Review. - 

" Mr. Justice Bailhache in the King v. the Superintendent of 
Vine Street Police Station. "The courts are entitled to take 
judicial notice of certain notorious facts. Spying has become 
the hall-mark of German Kultur. " September 7th, 1915. 



56 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

which Europe has passed, a revolution beside which 
the French Revolution assumes the proportions of a 
storm in a tea-cup, can leave our conceptions of law, 
whether municipal or international, unchanged. 



Conclusion. 

I make no apology, and I trust that none is needed, 
for these speculations. Reports of atrocities can 
serve no useful purpose unless they move men to re- 
flect no less resolutely than deeply upon what is to 
be done to deliver Europe from the scourge of their 
repetition. It may well be that my own reflections 
will seem cynical to one, depressing to another, arbi- 
trary to a third. They are not the idols of the the- 
atre, and in academic circles they may not be fash- 
ionable. But the catastrophe that has disturbed the 
dreams of the idealogues must teach jurists and states- 
men to beware of the opiate of words and sacramental 
phrases. That, however, is a task which belongs to 
the future. The immediate enterprise is not for law- 
yers but for our gallant men in the field. They, and 
they alone, can lay the foundations of an enduring 
peace by an unremitting and inexorable war. They 
are the true ministers of justice. 



Chapter II 

THE BKITISH ENQUIRY IN FRANCE 

In November of last year I was commissioned by the 
Secretary of State for Home Affairs to undertake the 
investigation in France into the alleged breaches of 
the laws of war by the German troops, the inquiries 
in England being separately conducted by others. 
The results of my investigation were communicated 
to the Home Office, in the form of confidential reports 
and of depositions, diaries, proclamations, and other 
pieces justificatives, and were in turn submitted to 
the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister and 
presided over by Lord Bryce. The Committee made 
liberal use of this material, but, owing to the exi- 
gencies of space and the necessity of selection, some 
of it remains unpublished, and I now propose to place 
it and the conclusions I draw from it before the pub- 
lic. Some part of it, and that part the most import- 
ant — namely, that which establishes proofs of a delib- 
erate policy of atrocity by responsible German officers 
— came into my hands too late for use by the Com- 
mittee. Moreover, the Committee felt that their first 
duty was to Belgium, and consequently the portion 
of the inquiry which related to France, and in par- 
ticular to outrages? upon British soldiers in France, 

57 



58 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

occupies a comparatively small place in their publica- 
tions. In this article I therefore confine myself to 
the latter branch of the inquiry, and the reader will 
understand that, except where otherwise stated, the 
documents here set out are now published for the 
first time.^ 

My investigations extended over a period of four 
or five months. The first six weeks were spent in 
visiting the base hospitals and convalescent camps 
at Boulogne and Rouen, and the hospitals at Paris; 
during the remaining three months I was attached to 
the General Headquarters Staff of the British Expe- 
ditionary Force. In the course of my inquiries in the 
hospitals and camps I orally interrogated some two 
or three thousand officers and soldiers,^ representing 
almost every regiment in the British armies and all 
of whom had recently been engaged on active service 
in the field. The whole of these inquiries were con- 
ducted by me personally, but my inquiries at head- 
quarters were of a much more systematic character. 
There, owing to the courtesy of Lieutenant-General 
Sir Archibald Murray, the late Chief of the General 
Staff, I had the assistance of the various services — ^in 
particular the Adjutant-General, the Provost-Mar- 
shal, the Director of Military Intelligence, the Direc- 

*It is, however, impossible to include within the limita of 
this book the whole of the unpublished material at my dis- 
posal. 

* The term ' * soldier ' ' is used throughout this article in the 
sense adopted in the Army Annual Act, i.e., as meaning 
N.C.O.s and privates. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 59 

tor of Medical Services and their respective staffs — 
and also of the civil authorities, within the area at 
present occupied by the British armies, such as the 
sous-prefets, the procureurs de la Republique, the 
commissaries de police, and the maires of the com- 
munes. In this way I was enabled not only to obtain 
corroboration of the statements taken down in the 
base hospitals in the earlier stages of my inquiry, but 
also to make a close local study of the behaviour of 
the German troops towards the civil population dur- 
ing their occupation of the districts recently evacu- 
ated by them.^ In pursuance of this latter inquiry 
I visited every town and commune of any importance 
now in our occupation and lately occupied by the 
Germans, including places within a few hundred 
yards of the German lines. As regards the conduct 
of the German troops in the earlier stages of the cam- 
paign and in other parts of France, I confined my 
inquiries to incidents which actually came under the 
observation of our own troops during or after the 
battles of Mons, the Mame, and the Aisne, and did 
not extend them to include the testimony of the 
French civil authorities, as I did not consider it part 
of my duty to attempt to do what was already being 
done by the Commission of Inquiry instituted by the 
President of the Council. But I freely availed my- 
self of opportunities of corroboration of EngUsh evi- 

' The outrages committed in the districts now in the occu- 
pation of the British armies have not been reported upon by 
the French Commission, and the ground so traversed in this 
article is therefore new. 



60 GEKIMAN ATKOCITIES 

dence from French sources where such sources were 
readily accessible, and, by the courtesy of the French 
Ministry of AVar, who placed a Staff officer and a mil- 
itary car at my disposal, I was enabled to go over the 
ground to the north-east of Paris covered by our troops 
in their advance to the Aisne and to obtain confirma- 
tion of many incidents already related to me by 
British officers and soldiers. It was also my privilege 
frequently to meet M. Mollard, of the French Com- 
mission, and to examine for myself the depositions 
on oath and pieces justificatives on which the first 
Reports of the Commission are based, and which are 
as yet unpublished. In these different ways I have 
been enabled to obtain an extensive view of the whole 
field of inquiry and to arrive at certain general con- 
clusions which may be of some value. 

Methods of Inquiry. 

My method of inquiry was twofold — I availed my- 
self of both oral evidence and written evidence. As 
regards the former, the evidence taken at the base 
hospitals was wholly of this character. The method 
which I adopted in taking it was as follows : 

I made it a rule to explain to the soldier or officer 
at the outset that the inquiry was an official one, and 
that he must be prepared to put his name to any tes- 
timony he might elect to give. 

I allowed the soldier to tell his story in his own 
way and in his own words, but after, or in the course 
of, the recital, I always cross-examined him as to 
details, inquiring in particular (1) whether he di- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 61 

rectly witnessed the event himself; (2) what was the 
date and place of the occurrence — to establish these 
I have frequently gone over the operations with the 
witness with the aid of a military map and a diary 
of the campaign; (3) whether, in the case of hearsay 
evidence, he heard the story direct from the subject 
of it, and, in particular, whether he was versed in 
the language employed; (4) whether he could give 
me the name of any person or persons with him, par- 
ticularly officers, who also witnessed the event or 
heard the story. 

After such cross-examination I then took down the 
narrative, if satisfied that it possessed any value, read 
it over to the soldier, and then obtained his signature. 
This, however, was often only the first stage, as I 
have not infrequently been able to obtain confirma- 
tion of the evidence so obtained by subsequent inquir- 
ies at General or Divisional Headquarters, either 
among members of the staff or from company officers 
or from the civil authorities. For example, hearsay 
evidence of rape (and I always regarded such evi- 
dence as inconclusive of itself) tendered to me by 
soldiers at the base hospitals received very striking 
confirmation in the depositions of the victims on oath 
which had been taken by the civil authorities at Bail- 
leul, ]\Ietteren, and elsewhere, and which were subse- 
quently placed at my disposal. Personal inquiries 
made by me among the maires and cures of the com- 
munes where particular incidents were alleged to 
have occurred resulted in similar confirmation. So, 
too, the Indian witnesses whom I examined at the 



62 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

base hospital were at my request subsequently re- 
examined, when they had rejoined their units, by the 
Intelligence Officers attached to the Indian Corps, 
and with much the same results. Corroborative evi- 
dence as to a policy of discrimination practised by 
the German officers in favour of Indians was also ob- 
tained from the record of statements volunteered by 
a German prisoner of the 112th Regiment and placed 
at my disposal by our Intelligence Officers. 

The general impression left in my mind by these 
subsequent inquiries at head-quarters as to the value 
of the statements made to me earlier by soldiers in 
hospital is that those statements were true. There 
is a tendency in some quarters to depreciate the value 
of the testimony of the British soldier, but the degree 
of its value depends a good deal on the capacity in 
which, and the person to whom, the soldier is address- 
ing himself. In writing letters home or in talking to 
solicitous visitors the soldier is one person; in giving 
evidence in an official inquiry he is quite another. I 
have had opportunities when attending field courts- 
martial of seeing something of iie way in which sol- 
diers give evidence, and I see no reason to suppose 
that the soldier is any less reliable than the average 
civilian witness in a court of common law. Indeed, 
the moment I made it clear to the soldiers that my in- 
quiry was an official one they became very cautious 
and deliberate in their statements, often correcting 
themselves or referring to their diaries (of which they 
usually take great care), or qualifying the narration 
with the statement *'I did not see it myself.'* It 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 63 

need hardly be said that these observations as to the 
credibility of the soldiers apply no less to that of the 
officers. And it is worthy of remark that, apart from 
individual cases of corroboration of a soldier's evi- 
dence by that of an officer, the burden of the evi- 
dence in the case of each class is the same. Where 
officers do not testify to the same thing as the soldiers, 
they testify to similar things. The cumulative effect 
produced on my mind is that of uniform experience. 
I have often found the statements so made subse- 
quently corroborated; I have rarely, if ever, found 
them contradicted. I ascribe this result to my having 
applied rigid rules as to the reception of evidence in 
the first instance. I have always taken into account 
the peculiar receptivity of minds fatigued and over- 
wrought by the strain of battle to the influences of 
"suggestion," whether in the form of newspapers or 
of oral gossip. It sometimes, but not often, happened 
that one could recognise the same story in a different 
investiture, although appearing at first sight to be a 
different occurrence. Or, again, it may happen that 
a story undergoes elaboration in the process of trans- 
mission until it looks worse than it originally was. 
So, too, a case of apparent outrage may admit of 
several explanations; it may happen, for example, in 
the case of a suspicious use of the white flag that the 
act of one party of Germans in raising it and of an- 
other party in taking advantage of it were conceiv- 
ably independent of one another. Cases of the shell- 
ing of ' * undefended ' ' places, of churches, and of hos- 
pitals, I have always disregarded if our men or guns 



64 GERIMAN ATROCITIES 

were or lately had been in the vicinity; and it may 
easily happen that a case of firing on stretcher-bearers 
or ambulance waggons is due to the impossibility of 
discrimination in the midst of a general engagement. 
Wherever any of these features appeared to be pres- 
ent I rejected the e\adence — not always nor neces- 
sarily because I doubted its veracity, but because I 
had misgivings as to its value. 

Outrages upon Combatants in the Field. 

,Lord Bryce's Committee, with that scrupulous fair- 
ness which so honourably distinguishes their Report, 
have stated that: 

''AYe have no evidence to show whether and in 
what cases orders proceeded from the officer in com- 
mand to give no quarter, but there are some instances 
in which persons obviously desiring to surrender were 
nevertheless killed.'' 

This is putting the case with extreme moderation, 
as the evidence at the disposal of the Committee, 
showing, as it did, that such barbarities were fre- 
quently committed when the German troops were 
present in force, raised a considerable presumption 
that they were authorised by company and platoon 
commanders at least, if not in pursuance of brigade 
orders. But after the Committee had concluded its 
labours, and, unfortunately, too late for its consider- 
ation, I succeeded, as the result of a long and patient 
investigation, in obtaining evidence which establishes 
beyond reasonable doubt that the outrages upon com- 
batants in the field were committed by the express 



GERMAN ATROCITIEJ^ 65 

orders of responsible officers such as brigade and com- 
pany commanders. The nature of that evidence 
(which is here published for the first time) I will 
disclose in a moment. But before doing so I will pre- 
sent the conclusions I had previously arrived at by a 
process of induction from individual cases. It will 
then be seen how the deductive method of proof from 
the evidence of general orders confirms the presump- 
tion raised by the evidence of particular instances. 

A German military writer of great authority ' pre- 
dicted some years ago that the next war would be 
one of inconceivable violence. The prophecy appears 
only too true as regards the conduct of German 
troops in the field; it has rarely been distinguished 
by that chivalry which is supposed to characterise 
the freemasonry of arms. One of our most distin- 
guished Staff officers remarked to me that the Ger- 
mans have no sense of honour in the field, and the 
almost uniform testimony of our ofBcers and men in- 
duces me to believe that the remark is only too true. 
Abuse of the white flag has been very frequent, espe- 
cially in the earlier stages of the campaign on the 
Aisne, when our officers, not having been disillusioned 
by bitter experience, acted on the assumption that 
they had to deal with an honourable opponent. 
Again and again the white flag was put up, and when 
a company of ours advanced unsuspectingly and with- 
out supports to take prisoners, the Germans who had 
exhibited the token of surrender parted their ranks 
to make room for a murderous fire from machine- 

*Von der Goltz. 



66 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

guns concealed behind them. Or, again, the flag was 
exhibited in order to give time for supports to come 
up. It not infrequently happened that our company- 
officers, advancing unarmed to confer with the Ger- 
man company commander in such cases, were shot 
down as they approached. The Camerons, the West 
Yorks, the Coldstreams, the East Lanes, the Wilt- 
shires, the South Wales Borderers, in particular, suf- 
fered heavily in these ways. In all these cases they 
were the victims of organised German units, i.e. com- 
panies or battalions, acting under the orders of re- 
sponsible officers. 

There can, moreover, be no doubt that the respect 
of the German troops for the Geneva Convention is 
but intermittent.'^ Cases of deliberate firing on 
stretcher-bearers are, according to the universal tes- 
timony of our officers and men, of frequent occur- 
rence. It is almost certain death to attempt to convey 
wounded men from the trenches over open ground 
except under cover of night. A much more serious 
offence, however, is the deliberate killing of the 

• One might go further and say that the Geneva Convention, 
which has hitherto been universally regarded as a law of per- 
fect obligation and which even the German Staff in the Ger- 
man War Book affects to treat as sacred, is perverted to an 
instrument of treachery. The emblem of the Red Cross was 
used to protect waggons in which machine-guns were concealed. 
And since this article was written a German hospital ship, the 
Ophelia, has been condemned, on irrefutable evidence, by our 
Prize Court as having been used for belligerent purposes. Such 
things throw a very lurid light on the German conception of 
honour. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 67 

wounded as they lie helpless and defenceless on the 
field of battle. This is so grave a charge that were it 
not substantiated by the considered statements of 
officers, non-commissioned officers, and men, one 
would hesitate to believe it. But even after rejecting, 
as one is bound to do, cases which may be explained 
by accident, mistake, or the excitement of action, 
there remains a large residuum of cases which can 
only be explained by deliberate malice. No other 
explanation is possible when, as has not infrequently 
happened, men who have been wounded by rifle fire 
in an advance, and have had to be left during a re- 
tirement for reinforcements, are discovered, in our 
subsequent advance, with nine or ten bayonet wounds 
or with their heads beaten in by the butt-ends of 
rifles. Such cases could not have occurred, the enemy 
being present in force, without the knowledge of su- 
perior officers. Indeed, I have before me evidence 
which goes to show that German officers have them- 
selves acted in similar fashion. Some of the cases 
reveal a leisurely barbarity which proves great de- 
liberation ; cases such as the discovery of bodies of 
despatch-riders burnt with petrol or *' pegged out" 
with lances, or of soldiers with their faces stamped 
upon by the heel of a boot, or of a guardsman found 
with numerous bayonet wounds evidently inflicted as 
he was in the act of applying a field dressing to a 
bullet wound. There also seems no reason to doubt 
the independent statements of men of the Loyal 
North Lanes, whom I interrogated on different occa- 
sions, that the men of one of their companies were 



68 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

killed on December 20tli after they had surrendered 
and laid down their arms.^ To what extent prisoners 
have been treated in this manner it is impossible to 
say ; dead men tell no tales, but an exceptionally able 
Intelligence Officer at the head-quarters of the Cav- 
alry Corps informed me that it is believed that when 
British prisoners are taken in small parties they are 
put to death in cold blood. Certain it is that our men 
when captured are kicked, robbed of all they possess, 
threatened with death if they will not give informa- 
tion, and in some cases forced to dig trenches. The 
evidence I have taken from soldiers at the base hos- 
pitals on these points is borne out by evidence taken 
at the Front immediately after such occurrences by 
the Deputy Judge-Advocate General, an Assistant 
Provost-Marshal, and a captain in the Sherwood For- 
esters, and in the opinion of these officers the evidence 
which they took, and which they subsequently placed 
at my disposal, is reliable.'^ 

The Proofs of Policy. 

The question as to how far these outrages are at- 
tributable to policy and superior orders becomes im- 
perative. It was at first difficult to answer. For a 
long time I did not find, nor did I expect to find, 
any documentary orders to that effect. Such orders, 
if given at all, were much more likely to be verbal, 

* Similar evidence has been supplied to me by a French officer 
attached to the Fifth Division of the British Expeditionary 
Force. See Chap. III., Part I., No. 56. 

'See Chapter III., Part I., ajid; in particuUr, Nos, 39 to 43. 



GERMAN ATEOCITIES 69 

for it is extremely improbable that the German au- 
thorities would be so unwise as to commit them to 
writing. But the outrages upon combatants were so 
numerous and so collective in character that I began 
to suspect policy at a very early stage in my inves- 
tigations. My suspicions were heightened by the 
significant fact that exhaustive inquiries which I 
made among Indian native officers and men in the 
hospital ships in port at Boulogne, and at the base 
hospitals, seemed to indicate that experiences of out- 
rage were as rare among the Indian troops as they 
were conunon among the British. The explanation 
was fairly obvious, inasmuch as many of these Indian 
witnesses who had fallen into German hands testified 
to me that the German officers ^ seized the occasion 
to assure them that Germany was animated by the 
most friendly feelings towards them, and more than 
once dismissed them with an injunction not to fight 
against German troops and to bring over their com- 
rades to the German side. For example, a sepoy in 
the 9th Bhopals testified to me as follows ; 

'*I and three others were found wounded by the Germans. 
They bound up our wounds and invited us to join them, offering 
us money and land. I answered, ' I, who have eaten the King 's 
salt, cannot do this thing and thus bring sorrow and shame 

* The German officers spoke Hindustani. Doubtless they knew, 
as I have found they often know, the identity of the British 
regiments opposite their positions and were attached there for 
the express purpose of dealing with Indians. But in no case, 
so far as I know, were their attempts to seduce our Indian 
troops successful. 



70 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

upon mj people. ' The Germans took our chupattis, and offered 
us of their bread in return. I said, *I am a Brahmin and can- 
not touch it.' They then left us, saying that if we were cap- 
tured again they would kill us." 

There was other evidence to the same effect. 
Eventually I obtained proofs confirming my suspi- 
cions, and I will now proceed to set them out. 

On May 3rd I visited the Ministry of War in 
Paris at the invitation of the French military author- 
ities, and was received by M. le Capitaine Rene Petit, 
Chef de Service du Contentieux, who conducted me 
to the department where the diaries of German pris- 
oners were kept. I made a brief preliminary exami- 
nation of them, and discovered the following passage 
(which I had photographed) in the diary of a Ger- 
man N.C.O., Gottsche, of the 85th Infantry Regiment 
(the IXth Corps), fourth company detached for 
service, under date **Okt. 6, 1914, bei Antwerpen'^ 

* * Der Herr Hauptmann rief uns um sich und sagte : * In dem 
Fort, das zu nehmen ist, sind aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach 
Englander. Ich wiinsche aber keinen gef angenen Englander bei 
der Komp. zu sehen. ' Ein allgemeiner Bravo der Zustimmung 
war die Antwort. '' 

("The Captain called us to him and said: 'In the fortresa 
[i.e., Antwerp] which we have to take there are in all prob- 
ability Englishmen. But I do not want to see any Englishmen 
prisoners in the hands of this company. ' A general * Bravo ' of 
assent was the answer. ' ') 

This malignant frenzy against British troops, so 
paxefully instilled, is borne out by a passage in an- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 71 

other diary, now in the possession of the French 
Ministry of War, which was found on April 22nd on 
the hody of Richard Gerhold, of the 71st Regiment 
of Infantry of the Reserve, Fourth Army Corps, who 
was killed in September at Nouvron : 

'*Auch hier kommen ja Sachen vor, was auch nicht sein darf, 
kommt aber doch vor. Grosse Greultaten kommen natiirlich an 
Englandern und Belgiern vor. Nun da wird eben jeder ohne 
Gnaden niedergeknallt, aber wehe dem armen Deutschen der 
in ihre Hande kommt. ..." 

(''Here also things occur which should not be. Great atroci- 
ties are of course committed upon Englishmen and Belgians; 
every one of them is now knocked on the head without mercy. 
But woe to the poor German who falls into their hands.") 

As regards the last sentence in this diary, which is 
one long chapter of horrors and betrays a ferocious 
credulity, it is worthy of remark that I have seen at 
the French Ministry of War the diary ^ of a German 
N.C.O., named Schulze, who, judging by internal evi- 
dence, was a man of exceptional intelligence, in which 
the writer refers to tales of French and Belgian 
atrocities circulated among the men by his superior 
officers. He shrewdly adds that he believes the of- 
ficers invented these stories in order to prevent him 
and his comrades from surrendering. 

A less conclusive passage, but a none the less sus- 
picious one, is to be found in a diary now in my pos- 

• This diary is now in the possession of my friend the Mar- 
quis de Dampierre, who is about to publish it and numerous 
others, together with fac-similes of the originals. 



72 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

session. It is the diary of an Unter-offizier, named 
Ragge, of the 158th Regiment, and contains (under 
date October 21st) the following: 

* ' Wir verf olgt^n den Gegner soweit wir ihn sahen. Da haben 
"wir machen Englander abgeknallt. Die Englander lagen wie 
gesaht am Boden. Die noch lebenden Englander im Schutzen- 
graben wurden erstochen oder erschossen. Unsere Komp. 
machte 61 Gefangene.'' 

Which may be translated: 

* * We pursued the enemy as far as we saw him. We * knocked 
out* many English. The English lay on the ground as if sown 
there. Those of the Englishmen who were still alive in the 
trenches were stuck or shot. Our company made 61 prison- 
ers.'*" 

So far I have only dealt with the acts of small 
German units — i.e. companies of infantry. I now 
come to the most damning proofs of a policy of cold- 
blooded murder of wounded and prisoners, initiated 
and carried out by a whole brigade under the orders 
of a Brigadier-General. This particular investigation 
took me a long time, but the results are, I think con- 
clusive. It may be remembered that some months 
ago the French military authorities published in the 
French newspapers what purported to be the text 

" The passage suggests that our wounded were killed, but it 
is not conclusive. * ' Noch lebenden, ' ' i.e., * * still living, ' ' would 
appear to mean the wounded found in our trenches and unable 
to escape with the others. The fact of some prisoners being 
taken does not dispose of the suspiciousness of the passage. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 73 

of an order issued by a German Brigadier-General, 
named Stenger, commanding the 58th Brigade, in 
which he ordered his troops to take no prisoners and 
to put to death without mercy every one who fell into 
their hands, whether wounded and defenceless or not. 
The German Government immediately denounced the 
alleged order as a forgery. I determined to see 
whether I could establish its authenticity, and in Feb- 
ruary last I obtained a copy of the original from M. 
Mollard, of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who is 
a member of the Commission appointed by the French 
Government to inquire into the alleged German 
atrocities. The text of that order was as follows: 

*'Befehl (Armee-befehl) vom 26. Aug. 1914, gegen 4 Uhr 
nachm. wie er von Piihrer der 7 Komp. Eeg. 112 (Infant.) bei 
Thionville, am Eingang des Waldes von Saint-Barbe, seinen 
Truppen als Brigade-oder Armee-befehl gegeben wurde: 

* ' Von heute ab werden keine Gef angene mehr gemacht Samt- 
liche Gefangene werden niedergemacht. Verwundete ob mit 
Waffen oder wehrlos niedergemacht. Gefangene auch in gros- 
seren geschlossenen Formationen werden niedergemacht. Es 
bleibt kein Mann lebend hinter uns. '' 



(*'Army Order of 26 Aug., 1914, about 4 p.m., such as was 
given to his troops as a Brigade or Army Order by the leader 
of the 7th Company of the 112th Eegiment of Infantry at 
Thionville, at the entrance of the wood of Saint Barbe. 

' ' To date from this day no prisoners will be made any longer. 
All the prisoners will be executed. The wounded, whether 
armed or defenceless, will be executed. Prisoners, even in large 
and compact formations, will be executed. Not a man will be 
left alive behind us.") 



74 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Taking this alleged order as my starting-point, I 
began to make inquiries at British Head-quarters as 
to the existence of any information about the doings 
of the 112th Regiment. I soon found that there was 
good reason to suspect it. Our Intelligence Depart- 
ment placed in my hands the records of the examina- 
tion of two men of this regiment who had been cap- 
tured by us. One of them volunteered a statement to 
one of our Intelligence Officers on November 23rd to 
the effect that his regiment had orders to treat In- 
dians well, but were allowed to treat British prison- 
ers as they pleased. This man's testimony appeared 
to be reliable, as statements he made on other points, 
i.e., as to the German formations, were subsequently 
found to be true, and his information as to discrim- 
ination in the treatment of Indians entirely bore out 
the conclusions I had already arrived at on that par- 
ticular point. The German witness in question fur- 
ther stated that 65 out of 150 British prisoners were 
killed in cold blood by their escort on or about Oc- 
tober 23rd on the road to Lille, and that the escort 
were praised for their conduct. Other German pris- 
oners have, I may add, also made statements that they 
had orders to kill all the English who fell into their 
hands. 

The evidence of this man of the 112th Regiment 
was as explicit and assured as it could be. But the 
matter did not stop there. At a later date an officer 
of the same regiment fell into our hands, in whose 
field note-book we found the memorandum "Keine 
Gef angene " ( ' * No prisoners " ) • He was immediately 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 75 

cross-examined as to the meaning of this passage, but 
he had a plausible explanation ready. It was to the 
effect that his men were not to make the capture of 
prisoners a pretext for retiring with them to the 
rear; but, having disarmed them, were to leave them 
to be taken back by the supports. 

But at the end of April — too late, unfortunately, 
for use by Lord Bryce's Committee — one of our In- 
telligence Officers placed before me the following 
entry in the field note-book of a German prisoner, 
Reinhart Brenneisen,^^ reservist, belonging to the 4th 
Company, 112th Regiment, and dated in August (the 
same month as appears on the face of the order in 
question) : 

**Auch kam Brigadebefehl silmmtliche Franzosen ob verwiin- 
det Oder nicht, die uns in die Hiinde fielen, sollten ergchossen 
werden. Es diirf te keine Gef angenen gemacht werden. ' ' 

("Tben came a brigade order that all French, whether 
wounded or not, who fell into our hands, were to be ghot. No 
prisoners were to be made.'') 

This, I think, may be said to put the reality of the 
brigade order in question beyond doubt. 

The cumulative effect of this evidence, coupled with 
the statements of so many of our men who claim to 
have been eye-witnesses of wholesale bayoneting of 
the wounded, certainly confirms suspicions of the 

" Brenneisen is now a prisoner in England. The diary was a 
most carefully kept one. Since I first published it, it has been 
republished by the French authorities. 



76 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

gravest kind as to such acts having been done by 
authority. Neither the temperament of the German 
soldier nor the character of German discipline 
(furchthar streng — ''frightfully strict" — as a Ger- 
man prisoner put it to me) makes it probable that 
the German soldiers acted on their own initiative. 
It would, in any case, be incredible that so many cases 
of outrage could be sufficiently explained by any law 
of averages, or by the idiosyncrasies of the ''bad 
characters" present in every large congregation of 
men. 

Treatment of Civil Population. 

The subject-matter of the inquiry may be classified 
according as it relates to: (1) ill-treatment of the 
civil population, and (2) breaches of the laws of war 
in the field. As regards the first it is not too much 
to say that the Germans pay little respect to life and 
none to property. I say nothing of the monstrous 
policy of vicarious responsibility laid down by them 
in the Proclamations as to the treatment of hostages 
which I forwarded to the Committee and which I left 
to the Committee to examine ; I confine myself to the 
practices which have come under my observation.^^ 
Here it is clear that the treatment of civilians is reg- 
ulated by no more rational or humane policy than 
that of intimidation or, even worse, of sullen vindic- 
tiveness. As the German troops passed through the 

"What follows refers principally to the portion of Northern 
France now occupied by the British troops. The case of Bel- 
gium has been sufficiently dealt with by the Committee. 



GERMAN ATEOCITIES 77 

communes and towns of the arrondissements of 
Ypres, Hazebrouck, Bethune, and Lille, they shot in- 
discriminately at the innocent spectators of their 
march; the peasant tilling his fields, the refugee 
tramping the roads, and the workman returning to 
his home. To be seen was often dangerous, to attempt 
to escape being seen was invariably fatal. Old men 
and boys and even women and young girls were shot 
like rabbits. The slightest failure to comply with the 
peremptory demands of the invader has been pun- 
ished with instant death. The cure of Pradelle, hav- 
ing failed to find the key of the church tower, was 
put against the wall and shot ; a shepherd at a lonely 
farmhouse near Rebais who failed to produce bread 
for the German troops had his head blown off by 
a rifle ; a baker at Moorslede who attempted to escape 
was suffocated by German soldiers with his own scarf ; 
a young mother at Bailleul who was unable to pro- 
duce sufficient coffee to satisfy the demands of 
twenty-three German soldiers had her baby seized 
by one of the latter and its head dipped in scalding 
water; an old man of seventy-seven years of age at 
La Ferte Gaucher who attempted to protect two 
women in his house from outrage was killed with a 
rifle shot. 

I select these instances from my notes at random — 
they could be multiplied many times — as indications, 
of the temper of the German troops. They might, 
perhaps, be dismissed as the unauthorised acts of 
small patrols were it not that there is only too much 
evidence to show that the soldiers are taught by their 



78 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

superiors to set no value upon human life, and things 
have been done which could not have been done with- 
out superior orders. For example, at BaiUeul,^' La 
Gorgue, and Doulieu, where no resistance of any kind 
was offered to the German troops, and where the lat- 
ter were present in force under the command of com- 
missioned officers, ci\41ians were taken in groups, and 
after being forced to dig their own graves were shot 
by firing parties in the presence of an officer. At 
Doulieu,^* which is a small village, eleven civilians 
were shot in this way; they were strangers to the 
place, and it was only by subsequent examination of 
the papers found on their bodies that some of them 
were identified as inhabitants of neighbouring vil- 
lages. If these men had been guilty of any 
act of hostility it is not clear why they were 
not shot at once in their own villages, and 
inquiries at some of the villages from which 
they were taken have revealed no knowledge 
of any act of the kind. It is, however, a common 
practice for the German troops to seize the male in- 
habitants (especially those of military age) of the 
places they occupy and take them away on their 
retreat. Twenty-five were so taken from Bailleul and 
nothing has been heard of them since. There is only 
too much reason to suppose that the same fate has 
overtaken them as that which befell the unhappy men 
executed at Doulieu. I believe the explanation of 
these sinister proceedings to be that the men were 

" See Chap. III., Section 2. 
"IduJ., Section 3. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 79 

compelled to dig trenches for the enemy, to give in- 
formation as to the movement of their own troops, 
and to act as guides (all clearly practices which are a 
breach of the laws of war and of the Hague Regula- 
tions), and then, their presence being inconvenient 
*and their knowledge of the enemy's positions and 
movements compromising, they were put to death. 
This is not a mere surmise. The male inhabitants of 
Warneton were forced to dig trenches for the enemy, 
and an inhabitant of Merris was compelled to go with 
the German troops and act as a guide ; it is notorious 
that the official manual of the German General Staff, 
Kriegshrauch in La^idskriege, condones, and indeed 
indoctrinates, such breaches of the laws of war. Brit- 
ish soldiers who were taken prisoners by the Germans 
and subsequently escaped were compelled by their 
captors to dig trenches, and in a field note-book found 
on a soldier of the 100th Saxon Body Grenadiers 
(Xllth Corps) occurs the following significant pas- 
sage: 

* ' My two prisoners worked hard at digging trenches. At mid- 
day I got the order to rejoin at village with my prisoners. I 
was very glad, as I had been ordered to shoot them both as 
the French attacked. Thank God it was not necessary.'' 

In this connexion it is important to observe that 
the German policy of holding a whole town or village 
responsible for the acts of isolated individuals, 
whether by the killing of hostages or by decimation 
or by a wholesale hattue of the inhabitants, has un- 
doubtedly resulted in the grossest and most irrelevant 
cruelties. A single shot fired in or near a place occu- 



80 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

pied by the Germans — it may be a shot from a French, 
patrol or a German rifle let off by accident or mistake 
or in a drunken affray — at once places the whole 
community in peril, and it seems to be at once as- 
sumed that the civil inhabitants are guilty unless they 
can prove themselves innocent. This vras clearly the 
case at Armentieres. Frequently, as the field note- 
book of a Saxon officer testifies, they are not allowed 
the opportunity. Indeed there seems some reason to 
suppose that the German troops hold the civil inhabi- 
tants responsible even for the acts of lawful belliger- 
ents, and, as my inquiries at Merris and Messines go 
to show, a French patrol cannot operate in the vicin- 
ity of a French or Belgian village without exposing 
the inhabitants to sanguinary punishment or preda- 
tory fines. There is not the slightest evidence to show 
that French civilians have fired upon German troops, 
and in spite of the difficulty of proving a negative 
there is a good deal of reason to reject such a suppo- 
sition. Throughout the communes of the region of 
Northern France which I have investigated notices 
were posted up at the mairie requiring all the inhab- 
itants to deposit any arms in their possession with 
the civil authorities, and the orders appear to have 
been complied with, as they were very strictly en- 
forced. 

In this matter of holding the civil population re- 
sponsible with their lives for anything that may 
prove ''inconvenient" (genant), to quote a German 
Proclamation, to the German troops, the German com- 
manders seem to have no sense of cause and effect. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 81 

At Coulommiers, so the Mayor informed me, they 
threatened to shoot him because the gas supply gave 
out. In a town which I visited close to the German 
lines (and the name of which I suppress by request 
of the civil authorities for fear of a vindictive bom- 
bardment), the Mayor, who was under arrest in the 
guardroom, was threatened with death because a sig- 
nal-bell rang at the railway station, and was in im- 
minent peril until it was proved that the act was due 
to the clumsiness of a German soldier; and an ex- 
change of shots between two drunken soldiers, result- 
ing in the death of one of them, was made the ground 
of an accusation that the inhabitants had fired on the 
troops, the Mayor's life being again in peril. Where 
the life of the civilian is held so cheap, it is not sur- 
prising that the German soldier, himself the subject of 
a fearful discipline, is under a strong temptation to 
escape punishment for the consequences of his own 
careless or riotous or drunken behaviour by attribut- 
ing those consequences to the civil population, for the 
latter is invariably suspected. 

Outrages upon Women — ^The German Occupation 

of Bailleul. 

When life is held so cheap, it is not surprising that 
honour and property are not held more dear. Out- 
rages upon the honour of women by German soldiers 
have been so frequent that it is impossible to escape 
the conviction that they have been condoned and in- 
deed encouraged by German officers. As regards this 
matter I have made a most minute study of the Ger- 



82 GERMAN ATKOCITIES 

man occupation of Bailleul. This place was occnpied 
by a regiment of German Hussars in October for a 
period of eight days. During the whole of that pe- 
riod the town was delivered over to the excesses of a 
licentious soldiery and was left in a state of indescrib- 
able filth. There were at least thirty cases of out- 
rages on girls and young married women, authenti- 
cated by sworn statements of witnesses and generally 
by medical certificates of injury. It is extremely 
probable that, owing to the natural reluctance of 
women to give evidence in cases of this kind, the 
actual number of outrages largely exceeds this. In- 
deed, the leading physician of the town, Dr. Bels, 
puts the number as high as sixty. At least five offi- 
cers were guilty of such offences, and where the offi- 
cers set the example the men followed. The circum- 
stances were often of a peculiarly revolting charac- 
ter; daughters were outraged in the presence of their 
mothers, and mothers in the presence or the hearing 
of their little children. In one case, the facts of 
which are proved by evidence which would satisfy 
any court of law, a young girl of nineteen was vio- 
lated by one officer while the other held her mother 
by the throat and pointed a revolver, after which the 
two officers exchanged their respective roles.^^ The 
officers and soldiers usually hunted in couples, either 
entering the houses under pretence of seeking billets, 

"After the outrage they dragged the girl outside and asked 
if she knew of any other young girls (''jeunes filles") in the 
neighbourhood, adding that they wanted to do to them what 
they had done to her. See Chap. III. (2) No. 4. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 83 

or forcing the doors by open violence. Frequently 
the victims were beaten and kicked, and invariably 
threatened with a loaded revolver if they resisted. 
The husband or father of the women and girls was 
usually absent on military service ; if one was present 
he was first ordered away under some pretext; and 
disobedience of civilians to German orders, however 
improper, is always punished with instant death. In 
several cases little children heard the cries and strug- 
gles of their mother in the adjoining room to which 
she had been carried by a brutal exercise of force. 
No attempt was made to keep discipline, and the of- 
ficers, when appealed to for protection, simply 
shrugged their shoulders. Horses were stabled in 
saloons; shops and private houses were looted (there 
are nine hundred authenticated cases of pillage). 
Some civilians were shot and many others carried off 
into captivity. Of the fate of the latter nothing is 
known, but the worst may be suspected. 

The German troops were often drunk and always 
insolent. But significantly enough, the bonds of 
discipline thus relaxed were tightened at will and 
hardly a single straggler was left l^ehind. 

Inquiries in other places, in the villages of Meteren, 
Oultersteen, and Nieppe, for example, establish the oc- 
currence of similar outrages upon defenceless women, 
accompanied by every circumstance of disgusting bar- 
barity. No civilian dare attempt to protect his wife 
or daughter from outrage. To be in possession of 
weapons of defence is to be condemned to instant 
execution, and even a village constable found in pos- 



84 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

session of a revolver (which he was required to carry 
in virtue of his office) was instantly shot at Westou- 
tre. Roving patrols burnt farm-houses and turned the 
women and children out into the wdntry and sodden 
fields with capricious cruelty and in pursuance of 
no intelligible military purpose. 

Private Property. 

As regards private property, respect for it among 
the German troops simply does not exist. By the uni- 
versal testimony of every British officer and soldier 
whom I have interrogated the progress of German 
troops is like a plague of locusts over the land. What 
they cannot carry off they destroy. Furniture is 
thrown into the street, pictures are riddled with bul- 
lets or pierced by sword cuts, municipal registers 
burnt, the contents of shops scattered over the floor, 
drawers rifled, live stock slaughtered and the carcases 
left to rot in the fields. This was the spectacle which 
frequently confronted our troops on the advance to 
the Aisne and on their clearance of the German 
troops out of Northern France. Cases of petty 
larceny by German soldiers appear to be innumer- 
able ; they take whatever seizes their fancy, and leave 
the towns they evacuate laden like pedlars. Empty 
anmiunition waggons were drawn up in front of 
private houses and fiUed with their contents for 
despatch to Germany. 

I have had the reports of the local commissaires 
of police placed before me, and they show that in 
smaller villages like those of Caestre and Merris, with 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 85 

a population of about 1,500 souls or less, pilla^g to 
the extent of £4,000 and £6,000 was committed by the 
German troops. I speak here of robbery which does 
not affect to be anything else. But it is no uncommon 
thing to find extortion officially practised by the com- 
manding officers under various more or less flimsy 
pretexts. One of these consists of holding a town 
or village up to ransom under pretence that shots 
have been fired at the German troops. Thus at the 
village of Merris a sum of £2,000 was exacted as a 
fine from the Mayor at the point of a revolver under 
this pretence, this village of 1,159 inhabitants hav- 
ing already been pillaged to the extent of some 
£6,000 worth of goods. At La Gorgue, another small 
village, £2,000 was extorted under a threat that if it 
were not forthcoming the village would be burnt. At 
Warneton, a small village, a fine of £400 was levied. 
These fines were, it must be remembered, quite in- 
dependent of the requisitions of supplies. As regards 
the latter, one of our Intelligence officers, whose duty 
it has been to examine the forms of receipt given by 
German officers and men for such requisitions, in- 
forms me that, while the receipts for small sums of 
100 francs or less bore a genuine signature, those for 
\ arge sums were invariably signed * ' Herr Hauptmann 
■ von Koepenick,'^ the simple peasants upon whom this 
fraud was practised being quite unaware that the 
signature has a classical fictitiousness in Germany. 

Observations on a Tour of the Mame and the Aisne. 
My investigations, in the company of a French 



86 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Staff Officer, in the towns and villages of our line 
of march in that part of France which lies north-east 
of Paris revealed a similar spirit of pillage and 
wantonness. Coulommiers, a small town, was so 
thoroughly pillaged that the damage, so I was in* 
formed by the Maire, has been assessed at 400,000 
francs, a statement which bore out the evidence 
previously given me by our own men as to the 
spectacle of wholesale looting which they encountered 
when they entered that town. At Barcy, an insig- 
nificant village of no military importance, I was 
informed by the Maire that a German officer, accom- 
panied by a soldier, entered the communal archives 
and deliberately burnt the municipal registers of 
births and deaths — obviously an exercise of pure 
spite. At Choisy-au-Bac, a little village pleasantly 
situated on the banks of the Aisne, which I visited 
in company with a French Staff Officer, I found that 
almost every house had been burnt out. This was 
one of the worst examples of deliberate incendiarism 
that I have come across. There had been no engage- 
ment, and there was not a trace of shell-fire or of 
bullet-marks upon the walls. Inquiries among the 
local gendarmerie, and such few of the homeless in- 
habitants as were left, pointed to the place having 
been set on fire by German soldiers in a spirit of pure 
wantonness. The German troops arrived one day in 
the late afternoon, and an officer, after inquiring of 
an inhabitant, who told me the story, the name of 
the village, noted it down, with the remark ''Bien, 
nous le rotirons ce soir.'' At nine o'clock of the 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 87 

same evening they proceeded to ** roast'' it by break- 
ing the windows of the houses and throwing into the 
interiors burning *' pastilles, " apparently carried for 
the purpose, which immediately set everything alight. 
The local gendarme informed us that they also 
sprayed (arrose) some of the houses with petrol to 
make them burn better. The humbler houses shared 
the fate of the more opulent, and cottage and mansion 
were involved in a common ruin. It seems quite 
clear that there was not the slightest pretext for 
this wanton behaviour, nor did the Germans allege 
one. They did not accuse the inhabitants of any 
hostile behaviour; the best proof of this is that they 
did not shoot any of them, except one who appears 
to have been shot by accident. 

A visit to Senlis in the course of the same tour 
fully confirmed all that the French Commission has 
already reported as to the cruel devastation wrought 
by the Germans in that unhappy town. The main 
street was one silent quarry of ruined houses burnt 
by the hands of the German soldiers, and hardly a 
soul was to be seen. Even cottages and concierges' 
lodges had been set on fire. I have seen few sights 
more pitiful and none more desolate. Towns further 
east, such as Sermaizes, Nomeny, Gerbevillers, were 
razed to the ground with fire and sword and are as 
the Cities of the Plain. 

Bestiality of German Officers and Men. 

Before I leave the subject of the treatment of pri- 
vate property by the German troops, I should like 



88 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

to draw the attention of the reader to some unpleasant 
facts which throw a baneful light on the temper of 
German officers and men. If one thing is more clearly- 
established than another by my inquiries among the 
officers of our Staff and divisional commands, it is 
that chateaux or private houses used as the head- 
quarters of German officers were frequently found to 
have been left in a state of bestial pollution, which 
can only be explained by gross drunkenness or filthy 
malice. Whichever be the explanation, the fact re- 
mains that, while to use the beds and the upholstery 
of private houses as a latrine is not an atrocity, it 
indicates a state of mind sufficiently depraved to com- 
mit one. Many of these incidents, related to me by 
our own officers from their own observations, are so 
disgusting that they are unfit for publication. They 
point to deliberate defilement. 

The public has been shocked by the evidence, ac- 
cepted by the Committee as genuine, which tells of 
such mutilations of women and children as only the 
Kurds of Asia Minor had been thought capable of 
perpetrating. But the Committee were fully justi- 
fied in accepting it — they could not do otherwise — 
and they have by no means published the whole. 
Pathologists can best supply the explanation of these 
crimes. I have been told by such that it is not at 
all uncommon in cases of rape or sexual excess to find 
that the criminal, when satiated by lust, attempts to 
murder or mutilate his victim. This is presumably 
the explanation — if one can talk of explanation — of 
outrages which would otherwise be incredible. The 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 89 

Committee hint darkly at perverted sexual instinct. 
Cases of sodomy and of the rape of little children did 
undoubtedly occur on a very large scale. Some of 
the worst things have never been published. This 
is not the time for mincing one 's words, but for plain 
speech. Disgusting though it is, I therefore do not 
hesitate to place on record an incident at Rebais re- 
lated to me by the Mayor of Coulommiers in the pres- 
ence of several of his fellow-townsmen with corrobora- 
tive detail. A respectable woman in that town was 
seized by some Uhlans who intended to ravish her, 
but her condition made rape impossible. What fol- 
lowed is better described in French: 

* ' Mme. H , caf eti^re k Rebais, raise nue par une patrouille 

allemande, obligee de parcourir ainsi toute sa maison, chassee 
dans la rue et obligee de regarder les cadavres de soldats 
anglais. Les allemands lui barbouillent la figure avec le sang 
de ses regies.'' 

It is almost needless to say that the woman went 
mad. There is very strong reason to suspect that 
young girls were carried off to the trenches by licen- 
tious German soldiery, and there abused by hordes of 
savages and licentious men. People in hiding in the 
cellars of houses have heard the voices of women in 
the hands of German soldiers crying all night long 
until death or stupor ended their agonies. One of our 
officers, a subaltern in the sappers, heard a woman's 
shrieks in the night coming from behind the German 
trenches near Richebourg 1 'Avoue ; when we advanced 
in the morning and drove the Germans out, a girl was 



90 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

found lying naked on the ground ** pegged out" in 
the form of a crucifix. I need not go on with this 
chapter of horrors. To the end of time it will be 
remembered, and from one generation to another, in 
the plains of Flanders, in the valleys of the Vosges, 
and on the rolling fields of the Mame, the oral tradi- 
tion of men will perpetuate this story of infamy and 
wrong. 

Conclusion. 

I should say that in the above summary I have con- 
fined myself to the result of the inquiries I made at 
General Head-quarters and in the area of our occupa- 
tion, and have not attempted to summarise the evi- 
dence I had previously taken from the British officers 
and soldiers at the base, as the latter may be left to 
speak for itself in the depositions already published 
by the Committee. The object of the summary is to 
show how far independent inquiries on the spot go 
to confirm it. The testimony of our soldiers as to the 
reign of terror which they found prevailing on their 
arrival in all the places from which they drove the 
enemy out was amply confirmed by these subsequent 
and local investigations. 

It will, of course, be understood that these inquiries 
of mine were limited in scope and can by no means 
claim to be exhaustive. For one thing, I was the only 
representative of the Home Office sent to France for 
this purpose; for another, I did not become attached 
to General Head-quarters until the beginning of Feb- 
ruary, and before that time little or nothing had been 



GERMAN ATEOCITIES 91 

done in the way of systematic inquiry by the Staff, 
whose officers had other and more pressing duties to 
perform. By that time the testimony to many grave 
incidents, especially in the field, had perished with 
those who witnessed them and they remained but a 
sombre memory. The hearsay evidence of these 
things which was sometimes all that was left made 
an impression on my mind as deep as it was painful, 
but it would have been contrary to the rules of evi- 
dence, to which I have striven to conform, for me to 
take notice of it. 

Two things clearly emerge from this observation. 
One is that had there been from the beginning of the 
campaign a regular system of inquiry at General 
Head-quarters into these things, pari passu with their 
occurrence, the volume of evidence, great though it 
is, would have been infinitely greater ; the other, that, 
as there is only too much reason to suppose that with 
the growing vindictiveness of the enemy things will 
be worse before they are better, the case for the estab- 
lishment of such a system throughout the continuance 
of the War is one that calls for serious consideration. 

Although I have some claims to write as a jurist 
I have here made no attempt to pray in aid the Hague 
Regulations in order to frame the counts of an indict- 
ment. The Germans have broken all laws, human 
and divine, and not even the ancient freemasonry of 
arms, whose honourable traditions are almost as old 
as war itself, has restrained them in their brutal and 
licentious fury. It is useless to attempt to discrimi- 
nate between the people and their rulers; an abun- 



92 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

dance of diaries of soldiers in the ranks shows that 
all are infected with a common spirit. That spirit 
is pride, not the pride of high and pure endeavour, 
but that pride for which the Greeks found a name 
in the word vySpi?, the insolence which knows no 
pity and feels no love. Long ago Renan warned 
Strauss of this canker which was eating into the Ger- 
man character. Pedants indoctrinated it, Generals 
instilled it, the Emperor preached it. The whole peo- 
ple were taught that war was a normal state of 
civilisation, that the lust of conquest and the ar- 
rogance of race were the most precious of the vir- 
tues. On this Dead Sea fruit the German people have 
been fed for a generation until they are rotten to 
the core. 



Chapter III 
DOCUMENTARY 



DEPOSITIONS AND STATEMENTS ( FIFTY-SIX IN NUMBER) 
ILLUSTRATING BREACHES OF THE LAWS OF WAR BY 
THE GERMAN TROOPS, MAINLY OUTRAGES ON BRITISH 
SOLDIERS 

(1) 

Private R. R , 1st Royal Scots: — At Ypres, on 

November 11th (the day I was wounded), the Ger- 
mans had made an attack on the trenches in front of 
us — we were back in the dug-outs. We went up to 
support and drove them back. In the trench were 
about a dozen Germans, our men having retired to- 
wards us. The Germans were kneeling with one hand 
up to let us see that they had surrendered; so we 
thought it was all right, and we turned our atten- 
tion to firing at those who were retiring. One of the 
officers of our regiment, but not of my company, was 
at the side of the trench and had picked up a rifle 
to fire at the retreating Germans. I saw one of the 

Note. — These documents are here made public for the first 
time. They have not been published either in the Bryce Eeport 

93 



94 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Germans who had surrendered — I think he was an 
officer — raise his revolver (we had had no time to dis- 
arm them) and shoot at our officer, who dropped. An- 
other man and I then shot the German. 

(2) 

Private W. M , 1st Wilts, — Company:— (1) 

On the Aisne, between September 14th and 22nd, I 
was in B Company and going to A Company for a 
wounded man. I am a bandsman and have acted as 
stretcher-bearer. The Germans came out of a wood 

with a white flag. The captain (Captain R ) of 

— Company gave the order to cease fire — the Com- 
pany was in the trenches. Captain R went for- 
ward alone towards the Germans, and the German 

officer then shot Captain R with his revolver 

and the rest of the Germans opened a heavy fire. 
Number — Company replied and drove the Germans 
back. 

(2) At La Bassee, between October 12th and 27th, 

or in the Nineteenth Century and After. I have selected the 
cases of Bailleul and Doulieu as typical of all the rest. Many 
other communes, e.g., Meteren, Steenwerck, La Gorgue, Vienx- 
Berquin, suffered a similar fate. As regards Bailleul itself I 
have given only one out of some twenty documents in my pos- 
session relating to the rapes committed there; the others are 
in no way inferior in authenticity, nor are they any less hor- 
rible. My object is not to multiply proofs, but to exemplify 
them. It will be observed that the evidence of British soldiers 
here given is that of eye-witnesses, except, of course, in cases 
of rape. As regards the latter, the hearsay evidence is fully 
corroborated by the French depositions of the victims. — J.H.M. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 95 

the Germans had shelled our trenches and driven us 
out, their infantry advancing in close formation. By 
that time only eleven out of B Company, including 
myself, were left. The Germans were within fifty 
yards of us and so we retired through a brewery 
down to a farm-house. We went upstairs — a mixed 
lot from various regiments (West Kents, Royal Irish 
Rifles, etc.), and began firing from the windows. 
From the upstairs we saw the Germans bayoneting 
those of our wounded who had been left in the 
trenches or placed under cover by us eleven, behind 
them, or had crawled along. 

(3) At La Couterie,^ about 3 kilometres from La 
Bassee, it must have been before October 12th, be- 
cause that was the day we got to La Bassee, we took 
possession of a farm-house for a dressing station. 
The farmer's wife frequently took food and clothes 
down to the cellar, she said it was for her daughter; 
the daughter would not come up. The mother, who 
was crying as she told us, made out to us that the 
"Allemands" had outraged her daughter — she held 
up five fingers. 

(3) 

Private J. S , Rifle Brigade, 1st Battalion: — 

On a Sunday at end of October or beginning of No- 
vember, just outside Bailleul, near Nieppe, we rested 
for three hours, having just come out of billets. The 
Germans had only just left — the chalk-marks of the 

* Presumably La Couture. — J. H. M. 



96 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

different regiments were still on the doors. There 
were a lot of refugees outside an estaminet, among 
them a mother and two daughters. One daughter 
looked scared to death, her eyes staring out of her 
head. She was a girl of about twenty-three, who 
looked rather delicate. The girl said nothing, stood 
there and stared like a lunatic. The mother told a 
group of us in broken English and partly in French 
— I know some French. She said, ''Les Allemands 
couchent avec ma fille ' ' — that the Germans — she made 
it appear about eight — had outraged her daughter. 
We did not go into the estaminet — it was forbid- 
den. 

(4) 

Captain C W , Bedfords, 2nd Battalion: 

— At Bailleul, I saw a great deal of evidence of wan- 
ton destruction — mirrors broken and furniture 
smashed. A German cavalry regiment had done it. 
I was in three different billets there, and in all three 
the same thing had happened. 

(5) 

Private S , K. 0. Scottish Borderers: — At 

Ypres, about a month ago, I was in the trenches and 
one of our men went out of the trenches to get a 
drink of water (from a spring about seven yards 
away). He was wounded in the leg, and an officer 

(Lieutenant S , of B Company) sent over for 

the stretcher-bearers, who were at head-quarters 
about 300 yards from the support trenches. They 



' GERMAN ATROCITIES 97 

were carrying this fellow away when one of the 
stretcher-bearers was ''sniped" from about 300 
yards. There was no firing at the time. Another 

man came of B Company, named G , volunteered 

and took the wounded stretcher-bearer's place, and 

then he was wounded too. G was put on a 

stretcher and was again wounded by a sniper. Cases 
of this kind were very common. 

(6) 

Private J. C , Scottish Fusiliers, 1st Battalion: 

— At Locre, near Bailleul, I was billeted in the 
church there at the beginning of December. The 
church had not been shelled, but had been looted 
and the crucifixes had been smashed, and all the 
images and things of value appeared to have been 
torn away. 

(7) 

Corporal J. D. B (at that time Bombardier in 

the 49th Battery R.F.A.) now of the 40th Brigade 
Ammunition Column R.F.A. : — On August 23rd at 
Mons, we got the order to advance up a hill with 
our battery. We got a section of guns in action 
in a ploughed field, and then we had a sergeant 
hit with a gunshot wound in the back (it was Ser- 
geant T , of the 49th Battery R.F.A.). Ser- 
geant R , of the 49th, asked me to take Sergeant 

T to an ambulance. I took him through a wood, 

and on the outside of the wood I saw a girl quite 
naked, running for all she was worth. She ap- 



98 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

peared to me to be about nineteen years of age. 
Her body was covered with blood and there was 
blood all over her breasts. She ran into some 
trenches on my right. I do not know what regi- 
ment occupied them, but I heard afterwards that 
an officer of the Gordons got hold of her. I went 
straight on with the sergeant down into Mons, and 
took him to the field hospital. 

(8) 

Private S , C Company, 1st King's R.R. : — It 

was on September 11th, I can never forget that 
date, it was after we left the Marne, and a day or 
two before the Aisne, we were engaged with the 
enemy at a distance of about 1,200 yards. They 
put up a white flag in their centre and waved it 
from side to side. We stopped firing, whereupon 
they fired heavily from their right flank. A sec- 
ond time they put up the white flag, this time on the 
right flank; but we took no notice of this and kept 
on firing. 

(9) 

R. McK , 2nd Roj-al Irish, — Co. :— About the 

end of November, near Neuve Chapelle, there was a 
hea\y attack, and we retired to get reinforcements, 

and left Sergeant G wounded in the leg in the 

trenches; when I last saw him he was binding up 
his wound. About 300 yards back we got reinforce- 
ments, and as we were advancing we saw three Ger- 
mans bayoneting Sergeant G . 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 99 

(10) 

R. McK , 2nd Royal Irish, at Mt. Kemmel:— 

On Monday I was sent to get water from a pump 
in the yard of a house about 50 yards behind the 
line, a farm-house, and in the kitchen I saw seven 
men and three women, a poor class of people, lying 
on the ground bayoneted. The house had been 
looted and everything smashed. 

(11) 

W. F , Sapper, 17th R.E. : — About September 

7th, near Lagny, we arrived at the village; stopped 
there for four hours while our artillery were in ac- 
tion. We had a house pointed out to us by the vil- 
lagers; there was a broken motor bicycle outside, 
and in the room against the wall we found one of 
our despatch riders with an officer's sword sticking 
through him. Our sergeant and our section officer 
told us that the villagers said that he came one night, 
having lost his way, and knocked at the door of 
the house, which was occupied by German officers; 
they let him in and then killed him. The house was 
in a terrible state, everything pulled to pieces. Sap- 
per W of our company was the first to find the 

house. 

(12) 

Private M , 1st Gordons, — Co. : — On October 

24th, at La Bassee, the Germans broke through our 
lines, and as we retreated I was hit in the hip with 
a shell. The Germans crossed over our trenches and 



100 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

charged till they met our reserves and were driven 

back. I saw Private E (of Portsmouth) of my 

Company lying wounded in the hip. As they passed, 
some stepped on top of me, some jumped over me, 

while others as they passed E kicked him and 

stamped on his face. When he was brought into 
the dressing-station his face was absolutely black. I 
never heard anything more of him. 

(13) 

J. G , Lance-Corporal, King's Own, 1st Batt. : 

— At the end of November, the second day after we 
arrived at Nieppe, two of us entered an estaminet 
and found the landlady crying ; she told us that about 
thirteen Germans violated her daughter and shot her 
husband against a wall in front of her eyes. She 
said there were a lot of other cases in Nieppe. 

(14) 

J. A , Private, 1st Camerons: — It was about 

October 23rd, at St. Jean (Ypres). We retired, ow- 
ing to shortage of ammunition, and left two wounded 
in the trench. When we came back one of them 
was lying about 20 yards behind the trenches stripped 
stark naked. We had left him behind covered with 
a waterproof cloak. 

When darkness set in, on retiring, I waited be- 
hind to carry in one of the wounded. I lost the 
road and walked into the German lines with my com- 
rade on my back. I was seized and my hands tied 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 101 

in front; I was tlien kicked by several German sol- 
diers and thrown into a cellar. They kept pointing 
a bayonet at my heart. They took away all my food, 
tobacco, private letters, everything, and ate my food 
in front of me. After about twenty hours the East 
Surreys came up and released us. 

(15) 

J. W. D , Private, 1st Batt. Cheshires: — On 

November 14th, at Ypres, the Germans broke in our 
trenches and as we tried to get out most of us were 
shot. As they retreated, after being driven back 
from the communication trenches, at about 4.45 on 
the Saturday (November 14th), I was lying 
wounded in the leg at the bottom of the trench 
unable to rise and a German officer stooped down 
and shot me in the thigh. I saw the same thing 
done by other Germans to other men of my company. 

(16) 

C. R. A , Private, 10th King's Liverpool Scot- 
tish: — At Kemmel (I think), a place between Ypres 
and Armentieres, not far from Locre — Kemmel is 
just close to the trenches, and about the size of Ap- 
pleby — I, with two or three others, was out looking 
for vegetables for the officers (I was sent for be- 
cause I speak French), and we were looking to see 
if any one remained in the house. While doing this 
I came across the R.F.A., who took us to their head- 
quarters and supplied us with vegetables, etc. 



102 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Further up the valley we came upon a man in 
civilian clothes who was standing in a doorway. The 
house had not been damaged by shell fire, as prac- 
tically all the rest were. We began to talk. He 
told me in French that he was too old for the army, 
but had a son-in-law in the Belgian Army. When 
the Germans came they ransacked all the houses. Of 
those who came to his house some held him off with 
arms pointed at him, whilst others outraged his 
daughter-in-law who was about to give birth to a 
child. When I was there this poor woman had been 
sent away. 

(17) 

Private C , York L. I., 2nd Batt. :— 

(1) About November 17th or 20th, near Ypres, I 
was with the machine gun which was put out of ac- 
tion; I then went into my own company's trenches. 
As it was getting dark, the advance was made and 
we were up to the wire entanglements; we were 
driven back by superior numbers. Having gained 
our own trench, the roll was called and about seven- 
teen were missing out of our Co., Corpl. R be- 
ing amongst them. Under cover of darkness our 
reinforcements came up and we advanced again. We 
could only find seven wounded of the men missing 
and no German wounded at all. At the back of 
their trenches was a wood where we lost the Ger- 
mans. So we dropped back to their trench. About 
three days afterwards they attacked in large num- 
bers, but were repulsed and were driven back further 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 103 

than they had advanced. In our advance we came 
to a farm and a barn half full of potatoes where 
we found three of our wounded and two dead. Some 
of our men carried them out, and while we carried 

them one of the others died. Corporal R (who 

was among the five) was the worst wounded — he had 
been shot through the shoulder, and was insensible 
with both his eyes gouged out and his right arm 
hacked off. Our O.C. told us on a parade that it was 
done with a bayonet. He was sent home I heard 
a hospital. 

(2) At a* village about 3 miles S.E. of Ypres, about 
three weeks next Monday, forty-five of us advanced 
to rush a house; only seven of us returned. As we 
were advancing they opened fire on us with a ma- 
chine gun. We were only about fifteen strong when 
we got there. We had to break an entrance through 
the window. We heard shouts and a disturbance 
inside; it was the Germans making for the cellars. 

Captain A went upstairs after leaving some men 

on the cellar steps; I followed him. In the back 
room upstairs was a maxim gun. In one of the other 
rooms was a girl about fifteen — she had nothing on 
except a man's overcoat. When we broke into the 
room we thought she was absolutely mad. She cried 
out something, but we could not understand what 
it was. She rushed out of the room into the front 
bedroom which was locked. We smashed it in with 
our rifle butts and there found a woman, her mother, 
with her right breast all bleeding, and her clothes 
torn — her breast had been cut as if with a sword, 



104 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

not a bayonet. We used our field bandages and 
made her as comfortable as we could and sent a vol- 
unteer back for stretcher-bearers. 

[This soldier was at times in great pain when he 
spoke, but his mind was clear. I am convinced he 
spoke the truth.— J. H. M.] 

(18) 

Corporal D , Loyal North Lanes., 1st Batt. : — 

At Ypres, end of November, I was in the trenches, 
and I saw two of our men, who had been sent out 
as snipers, hit, and the Germans motioned to them 
to come into their trenches (which were about 80 
yards from ours) ; they began to crawl in, and as 
they got on the parapet of the trench the Germans 
shot them. 

(19) 

J. A , Private, Argyll and Sutherland High- 
landers, 2nd Batt. : — About the beginning of Decem- 
ber we were billeted in the outskirts of Armentieres, 
and were allowed out between twelve and three. We 
passed a man standing at his door, and he asked us 
if we had any bully beef — we said no, but we offered 
him a packet of cigarettes. We stood at the door 
talking and his wife and children came to the door. 
The woman looked bad — very delicate looking. He 
then told us that nine Germans had stopped in the 
house, and some of them had outraged his wife while 
he was in the house. He spoke very fair English. 
Private McM and S were with me. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 105 

(20) 

Private K , 1st Loyal North Lanes. : — On Mon- 
day night we attacked them and took two trenches. 
Everything was quiet till the next morning except 
for sniping. At about 8.30 they advanced upon us, 

and the officer of Company, seeing the men were 

overpowered, put up the white flag, and the men put 
their hands up to surrender. The Germans advanced, 
and when they got up to the trenches, they shot them 
each in their trenches as they stood. / saw this. I 
was on the left flank. 

(21) 

Sergeant C , 1st Glosters: — Last Wednesday 

morning, near La Bassee, I was in the trench, and 
I saw a wounded man of No. A Co. (who had had 
to retire from their trenches on our right, having 
been enfiladed during the night) crawling on all fours 
to get back. When the Germans saw him they turned 
a machine gun on him and killed him. 

About end of November, near Ypres, a Belgian 
farmer (a kind of peasant), who spoke a little Eng- 
lish (I can speak some French; I have a French con- 
versation book with me), told me that a German 
officer threatened him with a revolver because he 
tried to protect his daughter, and the officer forced 
the girl to sleep with him for four nights. 



106 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

(22) 

Sergeant G , 2nd Devons: — 

(1) At Estaires, about five weeks ago (latter part 
of November), we were billeted there, and I and 
another sergeant went into a cafe. The proprietor, 
who spoke quite good English, said that his daugh- 
ter had been outraged by a party of Germans while 
they were occupying. They forced the daughter out 
into a linhey (an outhouse) at the back and there 
outraged her. 

(2) At Laventie, about a week later, we halted; 
and I was speaking to a Frenchwoman who spoke 
English. She told me that the Germans had looted 
everything, and showed me a jeweller's shop which 
had been stripped of nearly everything. She pointed 
out two girls (I think about seventeen or eighteen) 
who, she said, had been outraged. 

(23) 

Private C , A.S.C., 7th Div., Supply Column :— 

At Westoutre, near Poperinghe, we were billeted 
about two months ago at a priest's house. He spoke 
English, and told me that his father was shot by 
the Germans against the church-yard railings be- 
cause he refused to give up the stores of which he 
had charge for the Belgian refugees. He told us 
that the Germans had practised a lot of outrages on 
the women. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 107 

(24) 

Lance-Corporal L , R.E., 55tli Co.: — ^Near 

Ypres, about October 22nd or 23rd, our section was 
ordered to assist the Highland Light Infantry, 
Queen's and Worcesters in a drive through a wood. 
"We passed a cottage on our right where fighting was 
going on. As we returned I saw two of our soldiers 
in a doorway carrying a wounded man. When they 
got out of the doorway one of the two soldiers was 
shot in the back by a German at a distance of about 
80 yards. All firing had ceased — it was a deliberate 
aim. On the same day I saw two stretcher-bearers, 
who were tending a man on the ground, fired at at 
a distance of about 40 yards — a regular fusillade. 
There was no fighting going on — our other troops 
were about 300 or 400 yards ahead, and these snipers 
had been left behind by the Germans for the ex- 
press purpose of picking off our wounded. 

(25) 

Private S , 1st Northampton: — On the day 

after General F was killed (he was an artillery 

general), on the Monday, we advanced 14 miles, 
about, and bivouacked in a field. From our bivouac, 
about one mile distant, there was a little farm. We 
went to the farm to fill our water bottles, and a 
woman told us that her two daughters (whom we 
also saw) had been outraged the previous night by 
twelve or fourteen Germans. The woman spoke Eng- 
lish quite well — at least, well enough for me to un- 



108 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

derstand — very distinctly. The woman was not ex- 
cited, but greatly distressed, and the two girls (one 
child sixteen, the other about nineteen — in fact, I 
think the woman said that the one was not six- 
teen) were still more distressed; they were in a piti- 
ful plight. Listening to the story with me were Com- 
pany Sergeant-Ma j or M of D. Co., also Sergeant 

S , also D. Co., and Corporal C , likewise of 

D. Co. 

(26) 

Captain F , 2nd Batt. Coldstreams: — 

(1) On the R-entel ridge, near Ypres, and south of 
Sonnen, I have seen repeated cases of deliberate fir- 
ing on stretcher-bearers which admitted of no doubt. 

(2) On the Aisne, on a Monday (either September 
13th or 14th) at Soupir, there was a bad case of 
trickery with the white flag. The Germans advanced 
from a farm-house with white flags at the end of their 
rifles, and on our men rushing forward, despite the 
warning of their officers, to take prisoners, they were 
shot down. We lost a whole company of the 3rd 
Batt. Coldstreams in this way. 

(27) 

Private L , in the 1st Cornwall L.I. : — On Sep- 
tember 9th (Wednesday) at Montreuil, I was 
wounded and being carried by two of ours, when 
about a quarter-mile from the firing-line I and other 
wounded were being brought down an exposed slope ; 
the moment we appeared a machine-gun about 400 
yards distant opened fire on us — ^several wounded hit. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 109 

(28) 

Private W , in the 1st Camerons: — On the 

Aisne, September 14th, I was told by Sergeant Major 
C of Camerons that Captain H (command- 
ing our Company) was lying in a field having his 
wounds dressed by one of our own bandsmen acting 
as stretcher-bearer. Captain II and stretcher- 
bearer were shot by a German officer. The Sergeant- 
Ma jor (who had been taken prisoner by the Ger- 
mans) saw this happen. 

[Note. — This story was fully corroborated, 
without variation, by several other Camerons 
whom I met in other wards, and also by the 
Colonel of the Camerons, with whom I discussed 
the matter at General Hospital No. 4 (Paris) at 
Versailles.— J. H. M.] 

(29) 

Private "W (the same) : — "We were advancing, 

Black Watch on our right, Scots Guards on our left. 
Germans put up white flag and we advanced to take 
prisoners. At thirty yards they opened their ranks, 
and machine-guns concealed behind fired upon us, 
the Germans in front also firing their rifles. 

(30) 

Private S , 1st Batt. Glosters: — On August 

26th, first day of retreat from Fevrel, we were leav- 
ing the trenches, B. Co. covering us on the left. It 



110 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

was just where Captain S was shot. Private 

L , who had been shot twice, was bayoneted when 

lying on the ground by two Germans. I and the 
whole Company saw it. 

(31) 

Private B , West Yorks:— On September 20th, 

300 Germans ran up with a German officer and white 
flag, surrendering. About a thousand Germans fol- 
lowed and captured our Company of about 220. They 

bayoneted Sergeant-Ma j or A after surrender of 

the Company, and shot majority of the Company. 
I was only three yards from Sergeant-Ma j or when 
it happened. I fell over a hedge into a stone quarry 

and escaped. Here it was that Major I was 

killed. Later the Durhams came up and we got off. 

(32) 

Private (Lance-Corporal) C , 1st East Lanes: — 

About September 6th, Chateau de Perense, near 
Jouasse, Seine et Marne, about 700 Germans, com- 
ing out of a wood, dropped their rifles and held up 
their hands ; whistle sounded * * cease fire. * * Two Com- 
panies sent up to accept surrender, and when within 
about ten yards the Germans ran back to the wood 
and their troops in wood opened fire on the two com- 
panies {i.e. on about 450 men). 

(33) 

Private C (the same) : — ^Passed through a vil- 
lage recently occupied by drunken Germans. "Women 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 111 

raving. Saw two women with bruised faces and black 
eyes. Lieut. M said they had attempted to re- 
sist outrage by Germans. 

(34) 

Private M , Notts and Derby: — On September 

20th (Sunday) in trenches on Aisne, seventy Ger- 
mans came up with white flag; we let them come up 
and then went out to take them. They then opened 
fire just as their reinforcements came up, and killed 
many men of the West Yorks, Notts and Derby, and, 
Durhams. 

(35) 

The same: — On the Monday morning we went out 
to find our wounded and discovered an English soldier 
with ten or fourteen bayonet wounds — there had been 
no bayonet fighting with the Germans. 

(36) 

Private H , 2nd Batt. Duke of Wellington's: — 

On September 8th and 9th, at Nogent-sur-le-Marne, 
advancing through the Forest of Crecy, heard on all 
sides stories of women outraged. I was told by Mme. 

S (Veuve) an elderly lady, who was the widow 

of an Englishman and spoke English, that an of- 
ficer had outraged her servant in the house. The 

servant stood by crying as Mme. S told the story. 

Mme. S gave me her address — ^here it is in my 

pocket-book: — 4 rue de Lafaulette, Nogent-sur-le- 
Marne. 



112 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

(37) 

J. B , Despatch Rider, Signal Co. 1st Div. 

R.E. : — About September 16th, near Paissy. At a 
distance of about 300 yards we saw through our 

glasses one of our despatch-riders (A of Signal 

Co., R.E.), shot while riding his motor-cycle; he fell 
off, and while lying on ground was speared by three 
Uhlans, one after the other. Uhlans attempted to 
burn him with his own petrol, but made off when 
they saw us coming. We found his body half -burned 
when we reached it. 

(38) 

Sergeant D , 1st Cornwalls: — About Septem- 
ber 9th, near 6 p.m.. Battle of the Aisne, I was with 
a platoon with orders to remain behind and delay 
German advance. We couldn't see any Germans, and 
we therefore had done no firing for quite an hour. 
Our ambulance was out picking up wounded. My 
platoon was marching back to rejoin our Company; 
we were carrying our rifles. R.A.M.C. were picking 

up Lieut. E when they were fired on from the 

woods at a distance of about 300 yards, a regular 

fusillade. Lieut. E badly hit. Ambulance had 

to gallop off out of range, and we made off. Am- 
bulance was broadside on to the enemy, and must 
therefore have been unmistakable. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 113 

(39, 40 and 41) 

Statements taken down, after cross-examination by 
a Staff Officer at Gleneral Headquarters, as to inci- 
dents in the neighbourhood at Ypres: 

(1) Private B. S , 1st Black Watch, says that 

he saw Germans bayonet our wounded as they lay 
on the ground. He was wounded in the leg himself, 
but, seeing this, he managed to get away. 

Afterwards he was with German wounded, who 
told him that they had been ordered to kill all Eng- 
lish prisoners. 

(2) Private W. W , 1st Black Watch, says that 

he was in a reserve trench and saw the Germans 
bayoneting our wounded 40 or 50 yards in front of 
him. He was wounded in the arm and taken pris- 
oner, but was sent for water for wounded Germans 
and escaped. 

Says the wounded Germans in our charge told him 
that they had been told to kill all English and take 
no prisoners. 

(3) Statement of Private M , Cameron High- 
landers attached. 

I saw this man, and consider him thoroughly re- 
liable as to the facts of the case. 

He says that he saw one German place the butt 
of his rifle on the wounded man 's chest and hold him 
while the other one shot him. Our reinforcements 
were heard coming up immediately afterwards, and 
the Germans ran away. The men were Prussian 
Guard. 



114 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

**I was shot while retiring, and took shelter be- 
hind a hedge which I had fallen through. A 
wounded man of the Black Watch was lying close 
beside me groaning. The Germans came up behind 
the hedge and fired through it. Two came through 
and I saw one deliberately place his rifle to the 
wounded Highlander's head and shoot him. The 
features of the wounded German who came into 
hospital with me in the same convoy are identically 
those of the man I saw commit the action/' 

(42 and 43) 

Summary of Statements taken by a Captain in the 
Sherwood Foresters: 

(1) The undermentioned privates state that on Oc- 
tober 20th, 1914, they saw German soldiers killing 
our wounded, and can s]vear to the same. [There 
follow three names of privates in the 2nd Sherwood 
Foresters.] 

(2) The men mentioned below make the follow- 
ing statement: that on November 1st, 1914, two Ger- 
man soldiers were seen both delivering blows on our 
wounded with rifle-butts, and shooting them. [There 
follow names of four privates in the Lincolnshire 
Regiment, and one in the Argyll and Sutherland 
Highlanders.] 

(44) 

Statement made by a private in the Loyal North 
Lanes.: 

On or about December 21st, I think near Neuve 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 115 

Chapelle, we were ordered up to the trenches occu- 
pied by the Gurkhas. We got over them and lined 
a ditch — some of ours wounded there. We charged, 
and they started with hand bombs. On our right 
was Captain Smart, shot in the head. We had to 
retire; an hour and a half later we advanced again, 
and here I found one of our wounded with his throat 
cut (he had been shot previously). I heard of others 
with their throats cut. I lay down close to him. 
Dawn was just breaking. We had to retire again, 
and the bodies were left there. 

(45) 

A Brigadier-General of the British Cavalry Corps: 
On September 6th, the day before we got to Rebais, 
we passed a lonely farm where we found a shepherd 
with the top of his head blown off by a rifle-shot. 
He had been asked by the Germans for bread, and, 
on failing to produce any, had been shot. 

(46) 

Statement by Major , O.C. of a Cavalry Field 

Ambulance: — On October 17th, at Moorslede, north- 
east of Ypres, the Germans were reported as having 
strangled a young baker in this place. The inhab- 
itants stated that he had been taken by the Germans 
to bake for them, and that he attempted to escape. 
The enemy caught him and stuffed a woollen scarf 
he was wearing down his throat, causing suffocation. 
One of my officers, Lieut. P , viewed the body in 



116 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

the convent next day, and found the scarf stuffed 
in the man's throat. 



(47) 

Private R. McK , 2nd Royal Irish : — On the ad- 
vance from the Marne to the Aisne in September, 
we passed through a village and saw a baby propped 
up at the window like a doll. About six of us went 
into the house, with a sergeant, and found the child 
dead — bayoneted. We found a tottering kind of old 
man, a middle-aged woman, and a youth, all bay- 
oneted. In another village our interpreter pointed 
out to us two girls who were crying; he told us they 
had been ravished. 

(48) 

Driver B , R.F.A. : — Somewhere between Chan- 

tilly and Villers-Cotterets, about the end of August, 
just after we started advancing, we were marching 
through a village, and the villagers called us into 
a house and showed us the body of a middle-aged 
man, with both arms cut off by a sword, pointed to 
him and said ''Allemands." They told our R.A.M.C. 
men in French that he had been killed when trying 
to protect his daughter. 

In the next village, before we got to the Aisne, 
the villagers showed us the dead body of a woman, 
naked, on the ground, badly mutilated, her breasts 
cut off, and her body ripped up. They said 
''AUemands." 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 117 

(49) 

Private F. W. M , Leicesters: — I think it was 

in October, after we had left the Aisne and were 
on the march. About a week before we got to Ar- 
mentieres, we went through a small village, halted, 

and I and a man named C , of my company, were 

searching a hedge for wood, and came across a baby 
with a single vest on it, as if it had been taken 
straight from bed, and nearly cut in half, as if by a 
sabre. 

(50) 

Private G. R , Bedfords: — Somewhere between 

October 14th and 17th, at a village about fifteen 
miles from Ypres, a boy was brought in from a 
farm-house, the people having sent in for surgical 
assistance for a boy who was wounded. I saw him 
brought in by some of our men to an estaminet — 
he had five sabre-cuts. His sister told us that the 
Uhlans had chased him round the farm because he 
had cried out something to them. He looked as if 
he would not live. One of our R.A.M.C. bound up 
his wounds. 

(51) 

Private W. D , Hampshires: — About seven 

weeks ago, when the Germans tried hard to break 
through, we were about two hours from a place 
which we call the Chateau, where the Germans 
pitched shells every day, especially at a big tower 
place which is there. Our platoons were in the 



118 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

trenches in the order left to right of 5, 6, 7, 8, and 
then came C Company in their trenches. The 
wounded left with the dead in the C trench were 
half buried by its having been blown in. The Ger- 
mans enfiladed the wounded, shot them, bayoneted 
them, jumped on them. 

(52) 

Private B , Royal West Kents: — Early in Sep- 
tember, in the advance from Coulommiers, I saw two 
British cavalrymen lying dead on the ground, their 
arms stretched out like a cross and their hands 
pinned by Uhlan lances. 

(53) 

Private J. C , Scots Guards: — Last Monday 

night, the other side the canal bank at a place I 
think they call ''Karuchi," the Manchesters were 
surrounded. We were in support and advanced to 
their help. . . . We re-took the trenches. In the sec- 
ond trench, when we got there, we found many Man- 
chesters who had been shot first and then bayoneted, 
as they lay wounded, by the Germans when captur- 
ing the trench. 

(54) 

Private P , Comwalls: — In the early part of 

September in our advance, in all the villages the Ger- 
mans had smashed everything for mere sport — the 
place stank with the dead bodies of pigs and chickens 
which they had killed and left in the road. We found 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 119 

scent-bottles thrown all over the road — mirrors 
smashed and furniture — lovely furniture — thrown 
into the street, and pictures cut. 

(55) 

Private W. T , Welsh Regiment: — On the re- 
treat from Mons in August we came upon a woman 
tied to a tree. She was quite dead. Her throat was 
cut. I believe she had been outraged. . . . The time 
was about 5 p.m. It was quite light. I should say 
the woman's age was between eighteen and twenty- 
two. The men cut her down. I saw them do it. I 
do not know what became of the body as we had to 
go on. I expect it was Uhlans who had done this. 

(56) 

Corps Expeditionnaire anglais, 5® Division d'ln- 
fanterie, 7® Groupe de Gendarmerie. Objet: Actes 
reprehensibles commis par des soldats allemands. 

RiiPPORT DU Capitaine Pigeanne, Commandant le 
detachement de gendarmerie attache a la 5® 
Division d'Infanterie anglaise, sur des actes 
reprehensibles commis par des soldats de 
l'armee ALLEMANDE. 

Serches, le 14 septembre, 1914. 
Le 10 septembre courant, en parcourant avec quel- 
ques gendarmes de mon detachement, en execution 
de I'Art. 109 du Service de la Gendarmerie en cam- 



120 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

pagne (31 juillet, 1911), un terrain sur lequel avait 
eu lieu la veille, un engagement, j'ai fait, au lieu 
dit ''Laroche, " commune de Montreuil-aux-Lions 
(Seine-et-Marne) les constatations suivantes: 

Un soldat d'infanterie anglaise avait ete tue sur 
la lisiere d'un petit-bois bordant la route de Mery a 
Montreuil-aux-Lions. 

II avait ete atteint par des balles de fusil, au cou 
et a la poitrine. 

II etait tombe et etait reste etendu sur le dos. 

Son cadavre fut mutile la face avait ete complete- 
ment aplatie et ecrasee, tres probablement par des 
coups donnes avec la crosse d'un fusil ou meme avec 
le talon de la chaussure. 

Cet acte fut certainement commis par des soldats 
allemands du 48 regiment d'infanterie, car six cada- 
vres d 'Allemands de ce meme regiment f urent trouves 
a 100 metres au plus de cet endroit. 

Une femme se trouvait sur la route tout pres de 
la. Des qu'elle me vit elle s'approclia de moi et 
encore sous le coup d'une vive indignation elle me fit 
le recit suivant: 

**Hier, 9 septembre, dans I'apres-midi, pendant 
le combat un soldat fut blesse. II avait ete atteint 
a une jambe. Malgre son blessure, il parvint a se 
trainer jusque chez moi, a la maison que vous voyez 
sur la colline, au lieu dit Pisseloup. 

"II me parla, je ne le compris pas. 

*'Je lui fis un premier pansement des qu'il en eut 
montre sa blessure et le fis etendre sur mon lit. 

**Quelques instants apres plusieurs soldats alle- 



GERMAN ATEOCITIES 121 

mands traverserent la route et vinrent egalement 
jusqu'a ma demeure. 

''Des qu'ils virent le soldat anglais qui etait blesse, 
ils le f rapper ent, le jeterent dehors de la maison, oil 
ils le battirent encore avec leurs fusils. 

" Je ne sais ce qu 'est devenu ce malheureux anglais, 
mais je pense qu'il a du etre-recueilli ou enterre, s'il 
est mort, par ses compatriotes qui sont passes ici ce 
matin, ont soigne des blesses et enterre quelques-uns 
des leurs tires dans le combat de hier." 

Enfin, j'ajoute le fait suivant: 

A Vanfleurs, le 8 septembre pres de Poccunente, 
j'ai encore vu sur la colline au N.O. de Poccunente, 
et a 1 Kilo, environ, le cadavre d'un Anglais dont 
le crane avait ete mutile a un tel point que la matiere 
cervicale apparaissait en plusieurs points. 

Ce soldat anglais etait un simple eclaireur, tue d'un 
coup de fusil a la lisiere d'un bois. 

Les Allemands s'etaient acharnes apres lui, peut- 
etre meme apres sa mort. 

Ces actes constituent peut-etre une exception et 
sont I'oeuvre de brutes, mais ils sont tellement odieux 
que j 'estime de mon devoir d 'en rendre compte a 
I'autorite militaire superieure. 

(Signed) C. N. Pigeanne. 



122 GEEMAN ATROCITIES 

n 

documents relative to the german occupation of 

bailleul 2 

Republique Francaise 

VILLE DE BAILLEUL, COMMISSARIAT DE POLICE 

(1) 

Proces-V erhal No. 2. Meurtre de trois civils non 
comhattants par des soldats allemands 

L'an 1914, le 16 octobre a 16 heures Nous Theve- 
nin. . . . Informe par les agents de notre service 
que les soldats allemands auraient tue trois individus 
non comhattants au lieu dit Nouveau Monde, com- 
mune de Bailleul, nous avons ouvert une enquete et 
entendons : 

Marie H , 37 ans, epouse C , demeurant a 

V Rue, Commune de Bailleul, entendue, declare : 

— Le jeudi matin, 8 courant, vers 7 heures je me 
trouvais au passage a niveau du Nouveau Monde, 
quand j 'ai vu passer trois civils accompagnes par six 
soldats allemands, ha'ionnette au canon et qui leur 
avaient attache les mains avec des serviettes. Je les 

'I have suppressed the names of the witnesses for fear of 
their relatives, if any, in German hands being subjected to vin- 
dictive measures. Also in the case (selected from some twenty 
similar cases equally authenticated) of rape I have omitted 
certain details which seem to me too disgusting for publica- 
tion.— J. H. M. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 123 

iai suivi du regard et quelques minutes apres j'ai vu 
les memes soldats accompagnant les memes hommes 
parler a un officier allemand qui leur a fait signe 
d'aller plus loin dans une pature. Les soldats s'y 
sont diriges conduisant tou jours les civils prison- 
niers; ils leur ont fait sauter un fosse, puis ils les 
ont mis debout sur une meme ligne dans la prairie. 
A ce moment un soldat allemand me fit rentrer dans 
une maison. Environ une demi heure apres, j'ai su 
que les Allemands avaient tue les civils que j 'avals 
vu passer avec eux et qu'ils les avaient enterres dans 
le jar din de Monsieur Pierre Behaghel. 
Lecture faite. 

V , Gabrielle, epouse D , agee de 26 ans, 

menagere, demeurant au N M , commune 

de Bailleul, interpellee, declare: — J'ai vu le jeudi, 8 
courant, vers 7 heures et demie du matin six soldats 
allemands amenant avec eux, les mains liees, trois 
civils portant de petits paquets et paraissant avoir 
de 18 a 25 ans. Ils les ont mis dans la prairie en 
face de chez moi sur I'ordre que venait de leur don- 
ner un de leurs officiers auxquels ils venaient de 
s'adresser. J 'avals chez moi un soldat allemand qui 
faisait la cuisine et cet homme voyant venir les 
prisonniers m'a dit, en frangais: '^Begardez, 
Madame, comme c'est heau: voir fusilier des civils 
frangais, regardez c'est du heau travail, on devrait 
tous les tuer comme cela!'' J'ai repondu que je no 
pouvais pas le voir car c'etait un crime. Malgre ma 
reponse j 'ai regarde lorsque j 'ai entendu tirer le coup 



124 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

de feu et j'ai vu que ces pauvres civils tombaient. 
J'ai egalement vu les soldats allemands ereuser trois 
trous dans lesquels ils les ont ensevelis. Je ne sais 
rien d 'autre sur cette affaire. 
Lecture faite. 

3°. H , Helene, femme B , 44 ans, rnena- 

gere, demeurant a Bailleul au lieu dit ^'N 

M , * ' nous fait la declaration suivante : J 'ai vu le 

8 courant six soldats allemands presenter a leur offi- 
cier qui logeait chez moi trois jeunes gens civils qui 
portaient des paquets. L'officier a dit en francais 
aux soldats * ' Allez vite dans la prairie les fusilier ' ' ; 
les soldats sont partis aussitot. Je n'ai plus rien vu 
ni entendu concernant cette affaire, mais j'ai su que 
Tordre avait ete mis a execution. 

Lecture faite. 

4°. S , Desire, 74 ans, tisserant, demeurant a 

Bailleul, N I\I , declare: — J'ai vu, comme 

les femmes H , V et B , passer les trois 

civils encadres par les soldats allemands. Je sais 
que ceux-ci, sur I'ordre d'un de leurs officiers, les ont 
fusilles. Je les ai vus enterrer a cinquante metres 
de chez moi dans le jardin de Monsieur Behaghel 
Pierre. Les soldats allemands sont venus chez moi 
prendre des pioches et des pelles pour ereuser leurs 
tombes. Je ne sais rien de plus. 

Lecture faite. 

La femme H nous remet sur notre demande 

un laisser-passer delivre par la Commune de Zonne- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 125 

beke a un sieur Herreman qui est un de ceux qui ont 
ete fusilles par les Allemands. Nous le joignons au 
present ainsi que la photographie y annexee. 

Nous y joignons egalement une adresse trouvee 
ecrite au crayon pres de I'endroit ou ont ete enterres 
les trois corps des civils fusilles. Nous donnons 
I'ordre au garde champetre du quartier Deicke de se 

transporter au N M et de constater la 

presence des trois cadavres enterres, cela accompagne 
de deux temoins. 

De retour de sa mission I'agent nous fait le rap- 
port suivant: 

Je me nomme Deicke Juste, garde champetre a 
Bailleul. Conformement a vos instructions je me suis 
mis en rapport avec les nommes Coulier Achille, 30 
ans, marechal f errant; Sonneville Desire, 74 ans, tis- 
serand ; Lassus Henri, 51 ans, journalier ; Behaghel 
Julien, 19 ans, cordonnier, que j'ai pries de m'ac- 
compagner pour constater que trois corps de civils 
avaient bien ete enterres dans le jardin du sieur Be- 
haghel. La nous avons vu, les trois corps de jeunes 
gens vetus d 'habits civils et reconverts d'une couche 
de terre d 'environ 30 centimetres. 

Dans les effets nous avons trouve un extrait du 
registre d 'immatriculation de la commune de Beuvry 
(Pas-de-Calais) au nom de Bekaert (Cyrille Jerome), 
ne a Zonnebeke, le 29 aout, 1891. Je vous ai apporte 
cet extrait. 



126 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

(2) 

Froces-Y erbal No. 1. Meurtre du jeune B , 

Albert, par soldats allemands 

L'an mil neuf cent quatorze, le 15 octobre a 2 
heures du soir. Nous Thevenin, Pierre, Commissaire 
de la Ville de Bailleul, auxiliaire de Monsieur le Pro- 
cureur de la Republique. Informe par les agents de 
notre service qu'un meurtre aurait ete commis, il y 
a plusieurs jours, par un soldat de I'armee allemande 
au hameau de Stient de notre commune, ouvrons une 
enqutee et entendons: 

1°. B , Victor, 48 ans, cultivateur, demeurant 

a Bailleul, Rue , lequel nous dit : 

Le jeudi, 8 octobre courant, vers midi, mons fils 
Albert, 19 ans, venait d 'apprendre que des patrouilles 
allemandes circulaient dans le voisinage de notre 
ferme. II m'en fit part et me dit qu'il allait aussitot 
se cacher dans un fosse. II est parti de suite suivi 
de son frere Maurice, age de 17 ans. Le meme jour, 
vers 8 heures du soir, celui-ci revint a la maison, il 
me dit que son frere I'avait quitte pour aller a la 
ferme occupee par les epoux Charlet, nos voisons. 

Je suis alle aussitot voir mon voisin, C D , 

que je savais avoir passe la journee chez Charlet et 
celui-ci me dit que mon fils avait ete tue dans la 
ferme Charlet a coup de lance par un soldat alle- 
mand. Je ne sais pas autre chose sinon que j'ai vn 
le cadavre de mon fils dans la cour de cette ferme a 
moitie carbonise par Tincendie que venait de detrurie 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 127 

les immeubles et qui avait 6te allume par les soldats 
allemands. 
Lecture faite. 

B , Victor. Thevenin, Cre. de Police. 

2°. C D , 57 ans, cultivateur, demeurant 

a Bailleul, Rue de Lille, entendu, declare : 

Le 8 octobre, vers 3 heures du soir, je me trouvais 
a la ferme Charlet avec differentes personnes dont le 

nomme B , Albert. Les Allemands au nombre 

d'une dizaine, sont entres dans la maison absolument 
furieux et se sont rues sur nous hommes et femmes 
sans distinction, nous ont apprehendes au corps pour 
nous Jeter dans la cour de la ferme, ou ils allaient 

nous fusilier, disaient-ils. Le jeune B fut jete 

le premier. Un soldat qui etait a 1 'entree le perga 

d'un coup de lance qui le tua. B tomba raide 

mort a terre. Dans la cour, j 'ai vu que les batiments 
de la ferme flambaient. Les Allemands nous ont dit 
qu'ils venaient d'allumer cet incendie, car ils croya- 
ient qu'un coup du feu avait ete tire de la sur eux. 
Tons, nous avons supplie les Allemands de ne pas 
nous faire du mal. Un d'entr'eux qui causait fran- 
gais a fait part aux autres de ce que nous voulions. 
Alors, on nous a jete la tete apres les murs, on nous a 
bouscules tant qu 'ils ont pu et on nous a mis dehors de 
la ferme. Je ne sais pas autre chose sur cette affaire. 

Lecture faite. 

D , Clovis. Thevenin. 

3°. Joseph D , 14 ans, ouvrier agricole, demeu- 
rant a Bailleul, rue , entendu, nous fait una 



128 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

declaration corroborant de tons points a celle, de son 
frere qui procede et signe avec nous, ajoutant qu'- 
aucun coup de feu n'avait ete tire de cette ferme sur 
les Allemands ou sur aucune autre personne et qu'a 
sa connaissance il n'y avait dans cette ferme aucune 
arme a feu. 

D , Joseph. Thevenin. 

4°. C , Eugenie, nee B , 55 ans, fermiere, 

demeurant a Bailleul, Rue , nous dit: — J'ai 

regu a ma ferme le jeudi, 8 courant, vers midi et demi 

plusieurs voisins, parmi lesquels le nomme B , 

Albert. Je I'ai vu tue vers trois heures par un soldat 
allemand d'un coup de lance dans la poitrine alors 
qu'il venait d'etre jete dehors de ma maison par 
d'autres soldats allemands. Les soldats allemands 
nous ont tons malttraites en nous flanquant la tete 
contre les murs. lis nous ont en outre menaces de 
mort. lis ont dit que I'incendie qui a detruit ma 
ferme avait ete allume par eux, car ils avaient cru 
entendre un coup de feu parti de la. J'affirme que 
chez moi il n 'y a aucune arme a feu et qu 'aucun coup 
n'a ete tire. Je ne sais pas autre chose sur cette 
affaire. 

Lecture. 

C B . Th^venin. 

5°. B , Juliette, 36 ans, servante a Estaires, 

P P , interpellee, declare: — J'ai vue comme 

ma tant, epoux C et les autres temoins, tuer le 

jeune B , Albert. J'ai ete comme eux tons, mal- 

traitee et menacee de mort par les memes militaires. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 129 

Je ne puis pas en dire d 'a vantage, mais je confirme 
en tons points les declarations qui precedent. 
Lecture. 

Juliette B . Thevenin. 

Proces-Verhal, No. 3. — Meurtre des nommes Itsweire 

Donaty et Torrez Edouard, par une 

patrouille allemande 

L'an 1914, le 16 octobre, a 5 heures et demi du 
soir nous Thevenin. . . . Informe par les agents de 
notre service que deux hommes habitant le village 
d 'Oultersteen, commune de Bailleul, avaient ete tues 
volontairement par des soldats allemands quoiqu'- 
etant en civils et non combattants, ourvons une en- 
quete et entendons: — 

F , Charles, 55 ans, fournalier, demeurant a 

Merris, lequel nous dit : — Le mercredi, 7 courant, vers 
4 heures et demie du soir, j'ai vu arriver pres du 
passage a niveau d 'Oultersteen une patrouille de dra- 
gons allemands appartenant au 5° regiment et com- 
mandee par un sous-officier. La patrouille a tire des 
coups de carabine sur les civils qui se trouvaient dans 
la rue. Quelques soldats sont alles tuer un homme, le 
nomme Isteweire Donat, 75 ans environ, qui s'etait 
refugie sous un pont. Je I'ai vu tirer sur cet homme 
et celui-ci ayant cesse de vivre. J'ai appris depuis 
qu'ils avaient tue un sieur Torrez Edouard, 40 ans, 
cabaretier, demeurant a Oultersteen et cela de la 
meme maniere. J'ai su aussi qu'un autre homme 
avait ete par eux blesse a la joue. 

Lecture faite. 



130 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

2°. B , Alfred, 37 ans, employe an chemin de 

fer, A , a Lille, entendu, declare: — Le 

mercredi, 7 courant, vers 4 heures et demie du soir, 
je revenais de voyage en passant par Oultersteen. 
A la barriere du passage a niveau de la route allant 
a Vieux-Berquin j 'ai vu devant moi des dragons alle- 
mands, 5° regiment, qui nous ont ajustes de leur 
carabines et ont tire trentaine de coups de feu. Pour 
ma part j'ai regu une balle a la joue gauche. Une 
autre a perce ma casquette, qui a ete lancee a plu- 
sieurs metres. A ce moment les nommes Torrez 
Edouard, et Isteweire Donat, etaient a cote de moi. 
Nous avons fui chacun de notre cote, seul j'ai pu 
echapper. Itsweire a ete tue sous un pont, Torrez 
a cote d'une haie de chemin de halage. J'ai vu que 
cette patrouille de dragons a tire une vingtaine de 
coups de revolver dans la maison de la garde barriere 
du passage a niveau de Vieux-Berquin, ou se trou- 
vaient trois femmes et trois enfants. L'arrivee d'une 
patrouille du 13° regiment de Chasseurs a cheval, 
qui a charge la patrouille allemande, a sauve la vie 
a ces six personnes qui n'auraient manque d'etre tues 
par ces bandits. Je ne sais pas autre chose. 

Lecture faite. 

3°. L , Jules, 13 ans, sans profession, demeu- 

rant a Oultersteen, interpelle dit: — Je n'ai vu Its- 
weire et Torrez que lorsqu'ils etaient droits, tues par 
la patrouille allemande a coups de fusils. J'ai vu 
cette meme patrouille tirer des coups de revolver chez 
moi. Les trois femmes et les deux autres enfants qui 



GERMAN ATKOCITIES 131 

se trouvaient dans la maison auraient certainement 
ete tues par eux ainsi que moi-meme, si une patrouille 
fangaise ne lui avait donne la chasse. Je ne sais pas 
autre chose coucernant ces deux meurtres. 

Proces-Verhal No. 4. Viol de la demoiselle D , 

Marie Therese, par deux officiers allemands 

(4) 

L'an 1914, le 17 octobre, a 9 heures, 1/4, nous 
Thevenin, informe par notre service qu'un viol aurait 
ete commis par des soldats ou des officiers allemands, 

Rue des Coulons, au domicile des epoux D , nous 

ouvrons une enquete et en entendons. 

1°. R C , epoux D , agee de 48 ans, 

boulangere, demeurant a Bailleul, Rue , laquelle 

dit: — Dans la nuit du 9 au 10 courant vers 2 heures 
du matin je me trouvais chez moi avec ma fille Marie 
Therese et la f emme M , quand j 'ai entendu f rap- 
per a la porte de la rue. Je suis allee ouvrir, une 
lampe a la main, et aussitot deux hommes sont entres, 
m'ont pousse du bras violemment, ont eteint ma 
lampe et sont alles directement vers I'endroit ou se 
trouvait ma fille. Dans ces deux hommes j 'ai reconnu 
deux officiers de I'armes allemande. lis m'ont saisie 
a la gorge pour m 'empecher de crier et se sont opposes 
violemment a ce que j'allume ma lampe. lis avaient 
a la main une lampe electrique dont ils se sont servis 
pour voir ma fille. J'ai vu que Tun d'eux, le blond, 
a pris ma fille en premier lieu et I'a jetee par terre 
dans la cuisine, puis il s'est couche dessus, lui a 



132 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

releve les jupons et la violee. Ma fille se debattait 
autant qu'elle pouvait, criait de toutes ses forces, 
mais ce bandit lui appuyant son visage sur le sein, 
il cherchait a etouffer ses cris. II est bien reste sur 
ma jQlle pendant un quart d'heure environ tandis que 
I'autre me tenait a la gorge et avait son revolver a 
cote de sa lampe. Quand celui-ci eut fini I'autre 
reprit ma fille a son tour et la renversa par terre 
dans le corridor, oii il lui fit subir les memes outrages 
pendant un quart d'heure environ, en meme temps, 
le blond etait venu pres de moi, son revolver en main, 
et me maintenant brutalement dans I'improssibilite 
de proteger mon enfant. Quand ils eurent fini ils 
ont pris ma fille par un bras chacun, I'ont trainee 
dehors et je ne sais plus ce qu'ils lui ont fait la. J'ai 
mene ma fille chez Monsieur Bells, docteur en mede- 
cine, qui I'a examinee et qui a constate que le viol 
avail ete consomme et que la defloration etait com- 
plete. 
Lecture faite. 

2°. D (Marie Therese) 19 ans, sans profession, 

demeurant chez parents, boulangers, a Bailleul, Rue 

, nous fait la declaration suivante : — Ainsi 

que vient de le dire maman, deux officiers allemands 
sont entres chez nous dans la nuit du 9 au 10 courant 
vers 2 heures du matin. J'etais seule avec ma mere 

Madame M . De suite I'un d'eux, un grand 

blond, a couru sur moi, m'a renversee par terre. . . . 
II m'a fait bien mal; j'ai souffert beaucoup et j'ai 
du I'endurer sur moi pendant un quart d'heure en- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 133 

viron. Quand il a eu assouvi sa passion il me fait 
relever et me traina vers son camarade, un grand 
brun, qui, a son tour, me renversa dans le corridor et 
me fit subir les memes outrages pendant un quart 
d'heure environ. Je dois dire qu'apres que chaeun 
d'eux, j'etais toute . . . et que chaeun m^a fait enor- 
mement souffrir. 

Je ressens a I'heure actuelle de tres violents maux 
de rein et mon bas ventre me fait excessivement mal. 
Quand le deuxieme eut fini tons deux me saisirent 
par un bras et me trainerent sur la rue en me de- 
mandant mon age. J'ai repondu que j'avais dix- 
neufs ans. Alors tons deux ont dit, en frangais le 
plus pur, ^^Vous devez connaitre d'autres jeunes files 
dans le voisinage; il faut nous dire oil elles sont pour 
que nous puissions en faire autant qu^a vous-meme.^' 
J'ai repondu que je n'en connaissais pas, que je 
n'avais pas de camarades dans le voisinage. lis 
m'ont alors embrassee tons les deux et serree tres 
fortement, puis ils m'ont laisse partir. Je suis ren- 
tree chez moi. J'oubliais de vous dire qu'avant de 
me lacher tons les deux m'ont dit '*Si vous dites ce 
que Ton vous a fait et que nous revenions chez vous 
on vous tuera." 

En rentrant chez moi Je n'ai plus revu maman? 
Je I'ai appelee de tons cotes et finalement je I'ai 
retrouvee dans le jardin. Avec elle et la femme 

M nous rentrions chez nous, quand nous avons 

entendu les memes officiers qui frappaient a la porte 
pour rentrer de nouveau. Nous avons eu peur et 
nous sommes parties dans le jardin. 



134 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Lecture faite. 

3°. D , Gabrielle, femme Maerten, 72 ans, me- 

nagere, demeurant a Bailleul, Rue , entendue 

nous fait une declaration corroborant de tons points 
celles qui precedent et signe avec nous. 

Personne n'a ete temoin de cette scene mais j'ai 
souffert beaucoup tant au physique qu'au moral de 
Texploit de ces deux bandits. 

Lecture faite. 

m 

EVIDENCE RELATING TO THE MURDER OP ELEVEN 
CIVILIANS AT DOULIEU 

Gendarmerie Natumale 

Cejourd'hui, 29 Novembre 1914. 

Declarations de Monsieur Rohart Jules, age de 65 
ans, Maire de la commune de Doulieu qui a declare : — 
Lors de I'invasion de la commune de Doulieu par 
I'ennemi, je suis toujours reste sur les lieux. J'ai 
connaissanec et j 'ai constate tout ce qui a ete commis 
sur mon territoire par les Allemands. J'ai d'abord 
appris que 11 iudividus civils frangais avaient ete 
fusilles dans un champ a proximite de la rue due 
Calvaire au lieu dit 'TEsperance." Ces hommes, 
qui n 'avaient pas ete enterres assez profondement, 
ont ete deterres le samedi, 17 octobre, pour les trans- 
porter au cimetiere, ou j'avais fait preparer une 
fosse commune et a la profondeur reglementaire. Je 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 135 

ne connais aucun de ces hommes, mais d'apres les 
diverses pieces que j 'ai pu retrouver sur eux, j 'ai pu 
etablir I'identite de sept. Les quatre derniers 
n^avaient aucun papier ni quoique ce soit pouvant 
etablir leur identite. 

J'ai fait prevenir les maires des differentes locali- 
tes on residaient ces hommes dont les noms suivent : 

1°. Leger Alfred Desire Louis, ne le 1^^ decembre 
1885 a Amiens, fils de Alfred et de Clarisse Lourdel. 

2°. Dequeker Henri Leon Joseph, ne le 25 avril 
1875 a Sailly sur la Lys, fils de Charles Auguste 
Joseph et de Hortense Adeline Hay. 

3°. Vienne Louis Amand, ne le 10 avril 1875 a 
Tourcoing, fils de Louis Eugane et de Elisa Marie 
Vienne. 

4°. Hallewaere Cyrille, ne le 4 decembre 1889, k 
Valmertinghe (Belgique), fils de Alphonse et de 
Gouwy Clemence. 

5°. Dequesnes Jules, ne 1®^ septembre 1884 a 
Roubaix, fils de Henri Joseph et de Charlotte 
Desmettre. 

6°. Ermnoult, , ne a , demeurant a 

Steenwerck, hameau de la Croix du Bac, reconnu par 
son beaufrere nomme, demeurant a la Croix du Bac. 

7°. Les quatre autres n'ont pu etre identifies. lis 
paraissaient ages approximativement de 30 a 40 ans. 

J'ai appris egalement la mort de Bail Desire 
retrouve a proximite de la ferme de Monsieur Leroy 
au lieu dit *'La Bleu tour.'' Je ne connais pas la 
cause de cette mort. . . . 

Madame Masquelier Mathilde, femme Decherf 



136 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Henri, age de 62 ans, menagere demeurant a Doulieu, 
Rue du Calvaire, qui a declare: — Le Dimanche, 11 
octobre, 1914, vers 16 heures deux soldats allemands 
sont venus me demander deux beches que je leur ai 
remises. Peu apres j 'ai remarque dans un champ 
situe a 40 metres environ de mon habitation, onze 
individus civils occupes a creuser une tranchee. Un 
peu plus loin se trouvait un groupe de soldats 
ennemis. J'ai regarde ces hommes travailler, puis 
au bout d'un quart d'heure ils se sont decoiffes, puis 
se sont mis a genoux. Comme ils se relevaient j'ai 
entendu une fusillade et au meme moment ils 
tombaient tons dans le trou qu 'ils venaient de creuser. 
Deux soldats frangais prisonniers, appartenant I'un 
a I'infanterie, 1 'autre aux chasseurs a pied, sont alors 
venus et ont reconvert les corps de ces hommes. 

Fievet Charles, age de 60 ans, boulanger epicier, 
demeurant au Doulieu, hameau de la Bleu Tour, 
declare: — Le mardi, 13 octobre, 1914, vers 5 heures 
30 du matin, les Allemands qui occupaient notre pays 
deja depuis plusieurs jours sont venus chez moi. Ils 
ont casse les persiennes, puis les carreaux de vitres 
des deux f enetres qui si trouvent sur la rue. M 'etant 
alors leve ils m'ont dit que je devais partir et qu'ils 
allaient bruler ma maison. Les rideaux de ces deux 
fenetres ont en effet ete brules. En sortant de mon 
habitation, j'ai regu un coup de poing sur la figure, 
puis aussitot un coup de crosse sur le cote de I'oeil, 
puis un droit sur la tete. Devant ces brutalites je 
me suis sauve a la ferme de mon voisin Ridez, situee 
a environ 30 metres en face de ma demeure. Au 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 137 

moment ou j'entrais dans la cour de cette ferme, 
j'ai entendu une detonation et immediatement j'ai 
remarque que mon bras droit tombait naturellement. 
Je ne ressentais aucun mal. Ce n'est qu'a mon 
entree dans cette ferme que j'ai constate que j'avais 
le bras droit casse. J 'ignore quel etait le but de ces 
violences, puisque je n'avais rien fait ni rien dit. 
C'est Monsieur le Docteur Potie de Yieux-Berquin 
qui me donne des soins. En ce qui concerne le vol 
et le pillage tant chez moi que chez mes voisins, je 
certifie que ce sont les Allemands qui ont tout pris. 
Un liste detaillee a ete addressee a M. le Maire du 
Doulieu. 



IV 



DEPOSITION OP A SURVIVOR OF THE MASSACRE OP 

TAMINES 

Traduction de la declaration faite en flamand par 
V A F , mineur a T amines 

Parquet du Tribunal de Ire Instance d^Ypres 

Pro Justicia 

L'an 1914, le 1 octobre, devant nous, Alpbonse 
Verschaeve, procureur du Roi a Ypres, a comparu, 
dans notre cabinet, sur invitation de notre part le 

nomme V A F , 28 ans, mineur domicilie 

a Tamines, actuellement refugee a Reninghe, lequel 



138 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

nous a fait sous la foi du serment en langue flamande 
la declaration suivante : 

Le samedi, 22 aout, dans le courant de I'apres- 
midi, les Allemands, au nombre de 200, me semble-t-il, 
sont entres dans la commune de Tamines. Immedi- 
atement ils obligerent tous les habitants (les femmes 
et les enfants aussi bien que les bommes) a sortir 
de leurs maisons et a se rendre a I'eglise. Pendant 
que nous sortions par la porte de devant, les Alle- 
mands penetraient dans nos demeures par la porte 
de derriere et y mettaient le feu. Aussi en tres peu 
de temps toute la commune ne formait plus qu'un 
vaste brasier. Lorsque toute la population se 
trouvait reunie dans I'eglise, les femmes et les en- 
fants furent expedies vers le convent des religieuses, 
tandis que les hommes (au nombre de 400), furent 
obliges de se diriger par rangs de quatre vers la 
plaine, et entre une double haie de soldats allemands. 
Pendant cette marche les soldats allemands ne cesse- 
rent de tirer sur nous et de cette fagon massacrirent 
impitoyablement un nombre considerable de mes 
concitoyens. 

Voyant que nombre de mes camarades tombaient, 
abattus par les coups de feu, je me suis laisse tomber 
a terre, quoique je n'etais pas blesse, et je suis reste 
la, immobile, couche sous les cadavres j usque vers 
le milieu de la nuit suivante; c'est ainsi que j'ai 
sauve ma vie. Le lendemain matin, lorsque je me 
suis releve j 'ai constate que nous etions a peine trente 
habitants qui avions echappe au massacre, mais la 
plupart des autres echappes etaient blesses; cinq 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 139 

seulement d'entre nous en etaient sortis complete- 
ment indemnes. Plus tard dans la journee nous 
avons ete forces d'inhumer les cadavres de nos 350 
concitoyens, puis amenes a une distance de 5 kilo- 
metres ; la on nous remit en liberte mais avec defense 
formelle de remettre encore le pied dans notre 
conunune. 

Apres lecture il persiste dans sa declaration et 
signe avec nous. 

(Signed) Alphonse Verchaeve. 

(Signed) V A F . 

Pour traduction conforme, 
le Procureur du Roi, 
(Signed) A. Verchaeve. 



FIVE GERMAN DIARIES 

'(a) Extract from the Diary of a German Soldier 
forwarded by the Extraordinary Commission 
of Enquiry instituted by the Russian Govern- 
ment. 

*'When the offensive becomes difficult we gather 
together the Russian prisoners and hunt them be- 
fore us towards their compatriots, while we attack 
the latter at the same time. In this way our losses 
are sensibly diminished. 

'*We cannot but make prisoners. Each Russian 



140 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

soldier when made prisoner will now be sent in front 
of our lines in order to be shot by his fellows." 

(b) Extract from a Diary of a German Soldier of 

the 13th Regiment, 13th Division, Vllth 
Corps captured by the Fifth (French) Army 
and reproduced in the First (British) Army 
Summary No. 95. 

December 19t}i, 1914. — "The sight of the trenches 
and the fury, not to say bestiality, of our men in 
beating to death the wounded English affected me so 
much that, for the rest of the day, I was fit for 
nothing. ' * 

(c) Contents of a Letter found on a Prisoner of 

the 86th Regiment, but written by Johann 
Wenger (loth Company Body Regiment, ist 
Brigade, ist Division I.A.C. Bav.) dated i6th 
March, 191 5, Peronne, and addressed to a 
German Girl. 

(After promising to send a ring made out of a 
shell.) "It will be a nice souvenir for you from a 
German warrior who has been through everjrthing 
from the start and has shot and bayoneted so many 
Frenchmen, and I have bayoneted many women. 
During the fight at Batonville [ ?Badonviller] I bay- 
oneted seven (7) women and four (4) young girls in 
five (5) minutes. "We fought from house to house 
and these women fired on us with revolvers; they 
also fired on the captain too, then he told me to shoot 



( GERMAN ATROCITIES 141 

them all — but I bayoneted them and did not shoot 
them, this herd of sows, they are worse than the 
men.'* 

(d) Extracts from the Diary of Musketeer Rehbein, 
II., 55th Reserve Infantry Regiment (2nd 
Company), 26th Reserve Infantry Brigade, 
2nd Guard Reserve Division, X. Reserve 
Corps. 

(This diary was captured during the recent operor 
tions at Loos, and forwarded to Professor Morgan 
hy the Head-quarters Staff. ^) 

August 16th (1914). On the march towards Lou- 
vain. — ''Several citizens and the cure have been shot 
under martial law, some not yet buried — still lying 
where they were executed, for every one to see. Per- 
vading stench of dead bodies. The cure is said to 
have incited the inhabitants to ambush and kill the 
Germans. ' ^ 

1914. 16/8. Marsch nach Louveigne. — ''Mehrere 
Biirger u. der Pfarrer standrechtlich erschossen, zum 
Teil noch nicht beerdigt. Am Vollziehungsplatz noch 
fiir jedermann sichtbar. Leichengeruch Uberall. 

' Note. — This diary is a laconic example of a hundred such 
village tragedies. According to the Eleventh Belgian Report 
(page 133), twenty-six priests and monks were shot in Namur 
alone. And see the pastoral letter of Cardinal Mercier (ibid., 
page 165) on what he calls ''this sinister necrology." In his 
own diocese alone (that of Malines) he records thirteen priests 
as having been killed. According to a German soldier the guilt 
of priests was established by the fact that church-bells often 
rang! — (Bryce Appendix, page 163). 



142 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Pfarrer soil die Bewohner Angefeuert haben die 
Deutschen aus dem Hinterhalt zu toten." 

(e) Extracts from the Diary of a German Soldier, 
Richard Gerhold (OfBcial Translation by 
French Head-quarters Staff). 

ExTRAiT Du Bulletin de Renseignements de la 
VI ° Armee du 30 AVRiL, 1915 

Extraits du carnet de route trouve le 22 avril sur le 
cadavre du reservist e Richard Gerhold, du 71° 
B.B. (IV° CM.) tue en Septemhre a Nouvron 

. . . Le 19 aout, nous avangons et peu a peu on 
apprend a connaitre les horreurs de la guerre: du 
betail creve, des automobiles detruites, villages et 
hameaux consumes; c'est tout d'abord un spectacle 
a faire frissonner, mais ici on cesse etre un homme, 
on devient flegmatique et on n'a plus que I'idee de 
sa securite personnelle. Plus nous avangons, plus 
le spectacle est desole: partout des decombres, fu- 
mants et des hommes fusilles et carbonises. Et cela 
continue ainsi. . . . 

. . . Nous franchissons la frontiere le 17 aout; je 
me souviens, et je vois sans cesse ce moment la : tout 
le village en flammes, portes et fenetres brisees, tout 
git epars dans la rue; seule une maisonnette subsiste 
et a la porte de cette maison une pauvre femme, les 
mains bautes, avec six enfants implore pour qu'on 
Tepargne elle et ses petits; il en va ainsi tous les 
jours. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 143 

Dans le village voisin la compagnie se fait remettre 
les armes naturellement avec la plus grande prudence. 
A peine nous sommes-vous mis en marche que des 
maisons on tire sur nos troupes; on fait demi-tour 
et en quelques instants tout est on flammes; il n'y 
a pas de place pour la pitie, il arrive frequement 
que cette sale engeance de cures prenne part a la 
fusillade; c'est potir moi une folic joie quand on 
pent se venger de cette canmlle de cures;* ici 
naturellement tout est foncierement catholique. 
Quelle vie agreable la population pourrait avoir ici 
si elle ne se laissait pas conduire sur une mauvaise 
voie par cette hypocrite canaille de pretres; ... la 
population ne serait pas inquietee le moins du monde 
de la part des Allemands; mais puisqu'il en est ainsi 
par ici, il n 'y a pas de notre cote a garder le moindre 
menagement. . . . 

. . . Le 18, nous atteignons Tongres: ici aussi c'est 
un tableau de destruction complete, c'est quelque 
chose d 'unique en son genre pour notre profession 
(c'est un verrier qui parle). . . . 

. . . Le 25 aout, nous prenons un cantonnement 
d'alerte a Grinde (Sucrerie) ; ici aussi tout est brule 
et detruit. De Grinde nous continuous notre route 

* This savage credulity found its sequel in the murder of 
many unoffending priests not only in Belgium but in France. 
I quote one case from the depositions in my possession : 

''Marie B , soeur du cure de Pradelles, a declare 'Les 

Allemands rodant dans le village ont enleve la personne de mon 
frere M. I'Abbe Heleodore Bogaert, cure de cette paroisee, et 
I'ont fusille an cimetiere de Strazeele sans aucun motif le 9 
octobre vers 1 heure et demie du matin.' '' 



144 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

sur Louvain; ici c'est partout un tableau d'horreur; 
des cadavres de nos gens de nos chevaux; des autos 
tout en flammes, Teau empoisonnee ; a peine avons- 
nous atteint I'extremite de la ville que la fusillade 
reprend de plus belle; naturellement on fait demi- 
tour et on nettoie; puis la ville est mitraillee par 
nous completement. 

Chemin faisant passent devant nous des corteges 
de prisonniers, hommes femmes et enfants poussant 
des cris. . . . 

. . . Le 1° septembre, nous sommes embarques 
dans Bruxelles-Paris ; sur cette ligne le meme tableau 
se renouvelle: villages consumes, fossee enormes, 
etc. . . . 

. . . Aujourd'hui, 7 septembre, c'est le jour le 
plus penible que jusqu'a present nous ayons vecu; 
I'endroit s'appelle Attichy; nous atteignons cet en- 
droit en faisant de longs detours, car on a fait sauter 
beaucoup de ponte. A 5 h. du matin, on repart, et 
cela au pas accelere parceque beaucoup de cochon- 
neries y ont ete commises. . . . 

. . . Le 9 septembre, apres un bon cantonnement, 
mais qui dure trop peu, nous partons la nuit a 1 h. 
% apres avoir mis des chemises fraicbes et nous 
avauQons vers Tennemi vers 6 h. du matin et livrons 
un combat apres lequel nous sommes completement 
desorganises. Notre regiment actuellement se com- 
pose d'un bataillon du 71°, d'une compagnie du 2° 
bataillon, de compagnies cyclistes des 14°, 46° et 
27° et de nombreaux autres elements encore. Vers 
11 h. du matin nous tombons sous une grele de shrap- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 145 

iiiells, nous n'avons pas d 'artillerie, ni d^autre cou- 
verture ; 1 'apres-midi nous sommes engages dans une 
chaude lutte. . . . Ici c'est Ormoy. Nous nous 
joignons au 9° Corps et nous portons vers la po- 
sition occupee hier par I'ennemi. . . . Nous faisons 
au feu d'artillerie tres vif, mais nous ne pouvons 
rien faire jusqu'a ce que notre artillerie ait netoye 
la place. Nous bivouaquons en foret apres que I'en- 
nemi s'est retire et nous nous avangons pour chercher 
de I'eau; la nuit vers 3 h. nous rentrons a la com- 
paignie. A 4 h. nous repartons: ainsi en 3 jours 
8 heures de sommeil et avec cela, nourris comme cela 
arrive parfois a la guerre et la marche continue de 
plus belle avec des efforts physiques les plus grands 
pour envelopper Tennemi vers Compiegne. Nous 
nous heurtons au 94° qui a ete repousse avec de 
fortes pertes; plusieurs compagnies de ce regiment 
sont fondnes et reduites a 40 hommes; nous can- 
tonnons ici; mais quelque chose de bien! Dieu! 
quelles delices! . . . Nous faisons un brin de toilette, 
mangeons et buvons a coeur joie et songeons en reve 
a vous la-bas! 

Le 11 septembre, mouvement toumant vers Chaulny. 
. . . Nous arrivons en cantonnement d'alerte a 
Chaulny vieux repaire de brigands. Apres quelques 
heures de sommeil, nouveau depart a 3 h. du matin. 
Le 12 septembre nous, nous fortifions a 10 Kim de 
Chaulny dans des tranchees: il ne s'y passe pas 
longtemps que nous y sommes vivement bombardes 
par 1 'artillerie ; a ce moment s 'engage un violent 
combat d'artillerie. Vers 5 h. du soir, nous entrons 



146 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

dans raction, mais nous ne pouvons avancer que 
jusqu'a une pente abrupte ou nous restons couches 
sous des torrents d'eau j usque dans la nuit. . . . 

. . . Malheureusement nous sommes encore trop 
f aibles dans cette position ; le rapport vient a 1 'instant 
que notre 2° Corps arrivera ou doit arriver dans 
Tapres-midi : de ces sortes de promesses, on nous en 
fait toujours, mais? Celui qui va croire ou se laisser 
conter que les Frangais fuient devant quelques fusile 
ou canons allemands se trompe joliment et ne sait 
rien. Jusqu'a present nous sommes obliges de dire 
que les Frangais sont un adversaire honorable que 
nous ne devons pas juger au-dessous de sa valeur. 
Ici, aussi, il se passe des choses qid ne devraient pas 
etre; oui, des atrocites sont commises ici aussi, mads 
naturellement sur les Anglais et les Beiges, tons sont 
abattus san^ pardon a coups de fusil. . . . 



VI 



DOCUMENTS SELECTED FROM THE REPORTS OF THE EX- 
TRAORDINARY COMMISSION OF INQUIRY APPOINTED 
BY HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA 

I. Violation of a Sister of Mercy. 

A Sister of Mercy, wearing the sign of the Red 
Cross, was seized by German and Austrian troops 
on April 20th, 1915, at the station of Radzivilishki 
and shut up in a cart-shed. 

**0n the fourth day several officers \isited her in 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 147 

the cart-shed and demanded information from her 
as to the positions of the Russian troops. They then 
beat her with swords and pricked her body with 
needles. On the same day she was taken to the third 
line of German entrenchments and lodged in a 'dug- 
out' occupied by German officers. Here she was 
violated, and during a week and a half several Ger- 
man officers frequently committed violent acts of 
copulation with her, and kept her in the 'dug-out' 
without clothes under a special guard. At last she 
succeeded in escaping from the trenches. With the 
help of a Lithuanian peasant she made her way to 
the Russian positions, where she arrived in an al- 
most unconscious state. First medical aid was at 
once administered, as it was found she was suffer- 
ing from inflammation of the peritoneum and cellular 
membrane surrounding the matrix. On examining 
her for marks of violence, bruises were visible in the 
region of the shoulder and on the thighs and legs." 

II. Violation of a Girl. 

At the beginning of the war, when the Germans 

entered the town of Kalish, a girl named X was 

arrested and led out to the public place, or square, 
for execution. Here the Germans tied her to a tree 
and told her that she would be shot. Others of the 
inhabitants, also condemned to be shot, were drawn 
up on the same open space. Among these victims 

was an acquaintance of the girl X , a student 

named N. Daviiidov. The German soldiers proceeded 
to stab this Davuidov with their bayonets before the 



148 GERIVIAN ATROCITIES 

very eyes of the girl X . and then they tore out 

hair from his head and finally shot him dead. This 
scene of murder gave the girl such a shock that she 
fainted. On coming to her senses she found herself 
in an apartment occupied by German officers. No 
sooner did she revive, than one of these officers com- 
mitted a rape upon her and destroyed her virginity. 
During the following days she remained a captive 
in the same apartment, where she was forced to yield 
to the brutal lust of the officer who first violated her, 
and to the solicitations of two of his comrades, who 
threatened to cut her to pieces with their swords if 
she offered any resistance. These officers then told 
her *'that the Germans had invented a new method 
of making war on the Russians, which would exter- 
minate them by means of poisonous gas without the 
waste of any more bullets." 

The girl was subsequently rescued by the Russian 
troops. 

A combined judicial and medical examination of 

the girl X on June 4th, established the fact that 

she had been deprived of her maidenhood and an 
inflammatory condition of the sexual organs was still 
plainly visible. 

III. Murder of Wounded Soldiers. 

On April 25th, 1915, when an infantry regiment 
retreated from the station of Krosno in Galicia, the 
unarmed wounded soldiers, who were unable to fol- 
low, and many of whom were crawling away on their 
hands and knees, were overtaken and stabbed to 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 149 

death, or despatched by blows with the butt end 
of rifles by the Austro-Hungarian troops. 

The foregoing facts have been confirmed by the 

evidence of junior subaltern B of the regiment, 

Serge Yakovlev Sudarikov, aged thirty, who was 
interrogated as a witness by the Examining Magis- 
trate of the 1st ward of Kharkov. 

IV. Murder of Wounded Soldiers. 

On May 12th, 1915, near the village of Bobrovka, 
forty versts from Yaroslav in Galicia, after the with- 
drawal of the ^'platoon sotnias" of dismounted cos- 
sacks from their trenches, the latter were occupied 
by German guardsmen, who drove out the Russian 
wounded at the point of the bayonet. 

Private Nikita Davidenko, who was one hundred 
paces from the trenches taken by the Germans, saw 
how they used their bayonets to thrust out four or 
five of his wounded comrades, whose groans were 
distinctly audible. 

When the Russian troops advanced on May 15th, 
Davidenko saw the bodies of many cossacks, who had 
been bayoneted or sabred to death in the trenches 
abandoned on May 12th. 

The above facts have been confirmed by the evi- 
dence of Davidenko, who was interrogated as a wit- 
ness by the Examining Magistrate of the second ward 
of Kharkov. 

V. Murder of Wounded Soldiers. 

On the retirement of the Russians, after the battle 



150 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

near Gumbinnen, in Eastern Prussia, August 7th, 
1914, a junior subaltern, named Alexander Lappo, 
aged twenty-six, who had been wounded in the back 
by a piece of an exploded shrapnel, was left be- 
hind, lying on the field. 

He soon perceived a group of about fifteen Ger- 
mans, headed by an officer and a colour sergeant, 
following up their detachments, and shooting all the 
wounded Russians within reach as they marched 
along. There was no consideration for the fact that 
these Russians had been struck down at a consid- 
erable distance from the actual fighting, without hav- 
ing fired a shot. One of the Germans in this squad 
caught sight of Lappo and fired at him with his rifle. 
Lappo received the bullet in his left elbow. A sec- 
ond shot, fired by the same German soldier, hit a 
wounded Russian private Tartar, lying next to Lappo. 
The Tartar made one or two convulsive movements 
and expired. The pain from the wound in his elbow 
made Lappo moan rather loudly, and this attracted 
the attention of the German officer, who at once 
levelled his revolver and shot him in the neck. This 
second wound rendered Lappo unconscious and he 
only recovered his senses towards evening, when he 
was picked up by Russian Red Cross men. Lappo 
then noticed that his leather wrist band with a black 
watch, worth ten roubles, had been stolen, evidently 
by the Germans. 

It is not certain to what troops of the enemy ^s 
forces this German officer and the men under his 
command belonged, but the German soldiers killed 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 151 

in the battle near Stalupenen, on August 4th, 1914, 
in which Lappo took part, had the figures *'41'' on 
their shoulder straps. 

The above described facts have been verified and 
established by a combined judicial and medical ex- 
amination, and by the evidence of Lappo, given un- 
der oath before the Examining Magistrate of the 
Circuit Court of Vitebsk, district of Gorodok. 

VI. Burning the Russian Wounded. 

Evidence of the Private Nicholas Semenov Dorozhkd 

In the latter half of June the regiment in which 
this witness was one of the rank and file took part 
in a battle near Ivangorod. When the fighting was 
over, the regiment settled down to rest. Some of 
the men, however, went to help the sanitary attend- 
ants to bring in the wounded and place them in a 
wooden cart-house or shed, roofed with straw, at 
one end of the village. According to statements made 
by the Red Cross bearers, from sixty-six to sixty- 
eight men were lodged in this building. At eleven 
o'clock at night there was a sudden and violent rat- 
tle of rifle fire. The village had been surrounded 
by the Germans. The witness seized his rifle and 
started to leave with three comrades, but in the dark- 
ness they stumbled into a German trench, and were 
taken prisoners. Their weapons were taken from 
them, and all four Russians were led to the same 
cart-shed, to which the witness Dorozhka had assisted 
to carry the Russian wounded. A German officer 
on the spot gave an order to his German soldiers 



152 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

and then he gathered up an armful of the straw, 
littered over the floor of the shed, placed it against 
one of the corners of the building, and set fire to it 
with a match. The witness declares, that he almost 
fainted when he saw this officer setting fire to the 
shed. The straw blazed up at once, the flames began 
to envelop the wooden walls, and when it reached 
the roof, piercing shrieks came from the wounded in- 
mates, calling for help. At this moment the officer 
who fired the shed approached the prisoners, who 
were standing near, and without uttering a word, 
he discharged his revolver point blank at one of the 
comrades of the witness, who instantly fell to the 
ground dead. Then this officer struck witness's other 
comrade with something in the lower part of the 
body, and by the light of the conflagration witness 
noticed that the man's intestines were protruding. 
Dorozhka rushed to one side and managed to break 
away from a group of German soldiers and escaped 
unhurt, although three shots were fired after him. 
The witness, after tramping all night, fell in with 
one of the Russian pickets. 

The foregoing was deposed to by the witness 
Dorozhka on examination by the Examining Magis- 
trate of the 1st Dnieprovsky District. 

VII. Ill-Treatment of Prisoners of War. 

In June, 1915, three Russian officers. Captain 
Kosmachevsky, Lieutenant Griaznov, and Sub-lieu- 
tenant Yarotsky, escaped from German captivity and 
reached Russia in safety. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 153 

They were made prisoners in East Prussia in Au- 
gust, 1914. Together with other captured officers, 
they were driven on foot to the town of Neidenburg, 
and at one place on the way were made to serve 
as cover for a German battery, which was in danger 
of attack from Russian artillery fire. 

For this purpose the prisoners were put into two- 
wheeled carts and ordered to wave white flags and 
flags with the Red Cross, and these carts were placed 
in front of the battery. At the same time the pris- 
oners were warned, that if only a single projectile 
fell into this German battery, they would all be shot 
for it. 

Four days these prisoners were on the march. At 
night they were compelled to sleep in the open in 
roadside ditches, although there were villages near 
by, and all that time they received no food, but only 
coffee, without sugar, milk or bread, served up in 
pails. Along the road the inhabitants and troops 
whom they met cursed and insulted them, tore off 
their shoulder straps, threatened them with their fists, 
spat at them and shouted ^'To Berlin!'* 

Before the prisoners were put into the train they 
were searched, and in this way many of them lost 
their gold watches and money. The Cossack officers 
especially were subjected to very strict search, in 
the course of which they were stripped naked. These 
Cossack officers were separated from the others and 
sent off with the private soldier prisoners. 

In the first instance the officer prisoners were in- 
terned in the fortress of Neisse in Silesia, and were 



154 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

subsequently removed to Kreisfeld, beyond the Rhine. 

The prisoners, according to their own account, were 
kept in horrible conditions. They were lodged in 
dirty barracks where the windows were shut fast 
and the glass of the panes covered with oil paint. 
It was forbidden to approach these windows under 
pain of being fired at by the sentries. This threat 
was once carried out, when an officer wished to make 
a drawing at one of the windows. Fortunately no- 
body was hurt. The imprisoned officers had to sleep 
in dirty beds full of bugs, lice, and other vermin. 
Their meagre fare was served up on dirty tables, 
littered with straw, whilst alongside were other ta- 
bles, covered with clean tablecloths and decently fur- 
nished even to the extent of glasses for beer, and on 
these tables dinner was served for the sentries, Ger- 
man subalterns, who looked on at the prisoners and 
their wretched accommodation in the most insolent 
manner. 

All the imprisoned officers were formed into com- 
panies, commanded by rough and rude sergeant- 
majors, who treated them like common soldiers. 

In November, 1914, two of the officer prisoners at- 
tempted to escape by bribing the shopman at the 
stores of the officers' canteen. This shopman, how- 
ever, turned out to be a German officer in disguise, 
and the attempt failed, but it cost the officers con- 
cerned very dear. They were put in irons and kept 
in prison six months in a far worse state than in the 
barracks. 

The above is attested by the evidence of Captain 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 155 

Kosmachevsky, Lieutenant Griaznov, and Sub-lieu- 
tenant Yarotsky, given to Major-General Semashko, 
a member of the Extraordinary Commission of In- 
quiry, and the deponents were admonished that they 
would be required to swear to the truth of their 
statements. 

VIII. 

Peter Shimchak, a peasant from the province of 
"Warsaw, who fled from German captivity, being ex- 
amined on oath, deposed to the following: — In Au- 
gust I was made prisoner while serving as a sailor 
on board a vessel under the British flag, going from 
Denmark to England. 

As a Russian subject I was not set free, but was 
placed in solitary confinement for seven days in 
a prison at Hamburg, and then sent to a camp for 
prisoners of war near Berlin, at Zel, where there 
were already many English, French, and Belgian 
prisoners. In that camp there was a small yard 
where offending prisoners were generally punished. 
On one occasion four Cossacks were brought into 
the camp. I recognised them by the yellow stripes 
down the sides of their trousers. They were taken 
out into the yard and placed about ten feet from 
the wall of the barrack, and through the crevices 
I was able to watch the proceedings. They took the 
first Cossack and placed his left hand on a smaU 
wooden post or block, and with a sword bayonet one 
of the German soldiers chopped off successively half 
of the Cossack's thumb, half of his middle finger and 



156 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

half of his little finger. I could plainly see how 
these finger pieces flew off at each stroke of the 
sword-bayonet and fell to the ground. The Germans 
picked them up and put them into the pocket of the 
Cossack's overcoat and then took him into a bar- 
rack, where there was a reservoir of running water. 
The second Cossack was brought up and had holes 
drilled through his ears, the point of the sword- 
bayonet being turned in the cut several times in 
order, evidently, to make the hole as large as pos- 
sible. This Cossack was then led away to the bar- 
rack where the first one had been taken. When 
the third Cossack was brought to the place of tor- 
ture his nose was chopped off by a downward stroke 
of a sword bayonet, but as the severed piece of nose 
was still hanging by a bit of skin, the Cossack made 
signs that they should cut it off completely. The Ger- 
mans then gave him a pocket knife, and with this 
the Cossack cut off the hanging piece of his nose. 
Finally, the fourth Cossack was brought forward. 
What they intended to do with him it was impos- 
sible to say, but this Cossack with a rapid move- 
ment drew out the bayonet of the nearest soldier and 
dealt a blow with it at one of the Germans. There 
were about fifteen German soldiers present, and they 
all set upon this Cossack and bayoneted him to death, 
after which they dragged the body outside the camp. 
What was the fate of the remaining three Cossacks 
I do not know, but I think, says the witness Shimchak, 
in concluding his account of the case, they must have 
been also killed, for I never saw them again. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 157 

IX. 

Evidence of the senior surgeon of the 73rd Artil- 
lery Brigade, Gregory Dimitrovich Onisimov, who 
was captured by the enemy on August 30th, 1914, 
near ''Malvishek" in East Prussia, but has since been 
released. The most striking and characteristic part 
of this ex-prisoner's testimony is a description of the 
insulting treatment received by Russian prisoners 
from the soldiers of their German escort on the road 
to Insterburg. ''The peaceful temper of our Ger- 
man convoy did not last long. We soon began to 
meet detachments of German troops, who swore and 
shook their fists and levelled their rifles and revolvers 
at us, shouting, 'Why lead these men about when 
they can be settled here on the spot?' This kind 
of remark was shouted at us in German, Polish, and 
broken Russian. The peaceful inhabitants also re- 
viled us, and called upon the soldiers to despatch 
us there and then. They shouted 'nach Berlin — to 
Berlin with them! ... to Welhau! . . . Russischer 
schweinhund — Russian swine,' and so forth. The 
soldiers of the escort were taken into houses on the 
road and made drunk, so that they also began to 
amuse themselves at our expense. The German sol- 
dier walking on my right took his rifle from his shoul- 
der, as if tired, and held it in such a way that the 
muzzle touched my right temple, and then he played 
carelessly with the lock of it, as though unaware of 
what he was doing. When I moved out of the way, 
he said : * Ah ! you 're afraid of losing your head, 
there's no danger.' As soon as the guard on one 



158 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

side had had his little joke, his comrade on the other 
side began. Another soldier on a cart came along 
purposely handling his rifle so as to stick the muzzle 
into my chest, and when I warded it off he roared 
with laughter and seemed highly delighted. When 
going down a steep part of the road the driver of 
a cart behind intentionally drove into us and struck 
me on the legs with the shafts. I shouted to him 
to stop and not break my legs. He simply replied: 
*Bad to have no legs.' This kind of thing went on 
throughout the march. Sometimes we were driven 
forward like horses, and the wounded men in the 
carts were so shaken about that they groaned with 
pain. The guards did not allow us to turn round 
to speak with them, and no attention was paid to 
our entreaties to drive them slowly." 

Alexis Krivtsov, Senator, 

President of the Extraordinary 
Commission of Inquiry. 



vn 

THE GERMAN V^HITE BOOK 

The Introductory Memorandum. 

Immediately after the outbreak of the present war 
there arose in Belgium a violent struggle by the peo- 
ple against the German troops which forms a flagrant 
violation of international law and has had the most 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 159 

serious consequences to the Belgian country and 
people. 

This struggle of a population which was under 
the dominion of the wildest passions continued to 
rage throughout the whole of the advance of the 
German army through Belgium. As the Belgian 
army fell back before the German troops after ob- 
stinately contested engagements, the Belgian civil 
population attempted by every means to impede the 
German advance in those parts of the country which 
were not yet occupied; but they did not scruple to 
injure and weaken the German forces by cowardly 
and treacherous attacks, also in places which had 
long been occupied by the German troops. The ex- 
tent of this armed popular resistance can be seen 
from the attached general plan (Appendix 1) on 
which were marked the lines of the German advance, 
and the Belgian places in which the popular strug- 
gle chiefly raged. We have an overwhelming amount 
of material resting on official sources, especially on 
evidence given under oath and official reports, that 
on these routes and in these places the Belgian civil 
population of every rank, age, and sex took part 
in the struggle against the German troops with the 
greatest bitterness and fury. In the Appendices is 
given a selection from this material which, how- 
ever, embraces only the more important events and 
can at any time be increased by further docu- 
ments. 

According to the attached material the Belgian 
civil population fought against the German troops 



160 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

in numerous places in the provinces of Liege (Ap- 
pendices 2-10), Luxembourg (Appendices 11-30), 
Namur (Appendices 12, 17, 31-42), Henegau (Ap- 
pendices 3, 7, 10, 40, 43-46, 49), Brabant (Appen- 
dices 47-49), East and West Flanders (Appendices 
49, 50). The conflicts in Aerschot, Andenne, Dinant, 
Louvain assumed a particularly frightful character, 
and special reports have been provided on them by 
the Bureau which has been appointed in the Min- 
istry of War for investigation of offences against 
the laws of war (Appendices A, B, C, D). Men of 
the most different positions, workmen, manufactur- 
ers, doctors, teachers, even clergy, and even women 
and children were seized with weapons in their hands 
(Appendices 18, 20, 25, 27, 43, 47 ; A 5 ; C 18, 26, 29, 
31, 41, 42-44, 56, 62; D 1, 19, 34, 37, 38, 41, 45, 48). 
In districts from which the Belgian regular troops 
had long retired, the German troops were fired on 
from houses and gardens, from roofs and cellars, 
from fields and woods. Methods were used in the 
struggle which certainly would not have been em- 
ployed by regular troops, and large numbers of sport- 
ing weapons and sporting ammunition and some old- 
fashioned revolvers and pistols were discovered (Ap- 
pendices 6, 11, 13, 26, 36, 37, 44, 48, 49 ; A 2, C 52, 
81; D 1, 2, 6, 20, 37). Corresponding with this were 
numerous cases of wounds by shot and also by burns 
from hot tar and boiling water (Appendices 3, 10; 
B 2 ; C 5, 11, 28, 57 ; D 25, 29) . According to all this 
evidence there can be no doubt that in Belgium the 
People's War (Volkskrieg) was carried on not only 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 161 

by individual civilians, but by great masses of the 
population. 

The conduct of the war by the Belgian civil popu- 
lation was completely irreconcilable with the gener- 
ally recognised rules of international law as they 
have found expression in Articles 1 and 2 of The 
Hague Convention: The Laws and Customs of War 
on Land, which had been accepted by Belgium. 
These regulations distinguished between organised 
and unorganised People's War. In an organised 
People's War (Article 1), in order that they may 
be recognised as belligerents, the militia and volun- 
teer corps must satisfy each of the following condi- 
tions: They must have responsible leaders at their 
head ; they must bear a definite badge which is rec- 
ognisable at a distance; they must bear their weap- 
ons openly ; and they must obey the laws and usages 
of war. The unorganised People's War (Article 2) 
can dispense with the first two conditions, that is, 
responsible leaders and military badges. It is, how- 
ever, bound instead by two other conditions; it can 
only be carried on in that part of the territory which 
has not yet been occupied by the enemy, and there 
must have been no time for the organisation of the 
People's War. 

The two special conditions required for the or- 
ganised People's War were certainly not present in 
the case of the Belgian francs-tireurs. For, accord- 
ing to the reports of the German military commands, 



162 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

which agree with one another, the civil persons who 
were found taking part in the struggle had no re- 
sponsible leaders at their head, and also wore no 
kind of military badge (Appendices 6, 49; C 4-7, 14, 
15, 22, 24, 25, 31; D). The Belgian francs-tireurs 
can therefore not be regarded as organised militia 
or volunteers according to the laws of war. It makes 
no difference in this, that apparently Belgian mili- 
tary and members of the Belgian ''Garde Civique" 
also took part in their enterprises; for as these in- 
dividuals also did not wear any military badge but 
mingled among the fighting citizens in civilian dress 
(Appendices 6; A 3; C 25; D 1, 30, 45, 46), the 
rights of belligerents can just as little be conceded 
to them. 

The whole of the Belgian People's War must 
therefore be judged from the point of view of an 
unorganised armed resistance of the civil popula- 
tion. As such resistance is only allowed in unoc- 
cupied territory, it was for this reason alone, with- 
out any doubt, contrary to international law in all 
those places which were already in occupation of 
German troops, and particularly at Aerschot, An- 
denne, and Louvain. But the unorganised People's 
War was also impermissible in those places which 
had not yet been occupied by German troops, and 
particularly in Dinant and the neighbourhood, as 
the Belgian Government had sufficient time for an 
organisation of the People's War as required by in- 
ternational law. For years the Belgian Government 
has had under consideration that at the outbreak 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 163 

of a Franco-German war it would be involved in the 
operations; the preparation of mobilisation began, as 
can be proved, at least a week before the invasion of 
the German army. The Government was therefore 
completely in a position to provide the civil popula- 
tion with military badges and appoint responsible 
leaders, so far as they wished to use their services 
in any fighting which might take place. If the Bel- 
gian Government in a communication which has been 
communicated to the German Government through 
a neutral Power, maintain that they took suitable 
measures, this only proves that they could have sat- 
isfied the conditions which had been laid down; in 
any case, however, such steps were not taken in those 
districts through which the German troops passed. 

The requirements of international law for an unor- 
ganised People's War were then not complied with 
in Belgium; moreover, this war was carried on in 
a manner which alone would have been sufficient to 
have put those who took part in it outside the laws 
of war. For the Belgian francs-tireurs regularly car- 
ried their weapons not openly, and throughout failed 
to observe the laws and usages of war. 

It has been shown by unanswerable evidence that 
in a whole series of cases the German troops were 
on their arrival received by the Belgian civil popu- 
lation in an apparently friendly manner, and then, 
when darkness came on or some other opportunity 
presented itself, were attacked with arms ; such cases 
occurred especially in Blegny, Esneux, Grand Rosere, 



164 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Bievre, Gouvy, Villers devant Oi^al, Sainte Marie, 
Les Bulles, Yschippe, Acoz, Aerschot, Andenne, and 
Louvain (Appendices 3, 8, 11-13, 18, 22, 28, 31, 43; 
A, B, D). All these attacks obviously offended 
against the precept of international law that arms 
should be borne openly. 

What, however, is the chief accusation against the 
Belgian population is the unheard-of violation of the 
usages of war. In different places, for instance, at 
Liege, Herve, Brussels, at Aerschot, Dinant, and 
Louvain, German soldiers were treacherously mur- 
dered (Appendices 18, 55, 61, 65, 66; A 1; C 56, 59, 
61, 67, 73-78), which is contrary to the prohibition 
"to kill or treacherously wound individuals belong- 
ing to the hostile nation or army." (Article 23, 
Section 1 (6) of The Hague Convention: The Laws 
and Customs of War on Land.) Further, the Bel- 
gian population did not respect the sign of the Red 
Cross, and thereby violated Article 9 of the Conven- 
tion of Geneva of July 6th, 1906. In particular, they 
did not scruple to fire on German troops under the 
cover of this sign, and also to attack hospitals in 
which there were wounded, as well as members of 
the Ambulance Corps, while they were occupied in 
carrying out their duties (Appendices 3, 4, 12, 19, 
23, 28, 29, 41, 49 ; C 9, 16-18, 32, 56, 66-70 ; D 9, 21, 
25-29, 38, 47). Finally, it is proved beyond all doubt 
that German wounded were robbed and killed by the 
Belgian population, and indeed were subjected to 
horrible mutilation, and that even women and young 
girls took part in these shameful actions. In this 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 165 

way the eyes of German wounded were torn out, 
their ears, nose, fingers, and sexual organs were cut 
off, or their body cut open (Appendices 54-66; C 73, 
78; D 35, 37). In other cases German soldiers were 
poisoned, hung on trees, deluged with burning liquid, 
or burnt in other ways, so that they suffered a spe- 
cially painful death (Appendices 50, 55, 63; C 56, 
59, 61, 67, 74-78). This bestial behaviour of the pop- 
ulation is not only in open contravention of the ex- 
press obligation for *^ respecting and taking care of" 
the sick and wounded of the hostile army (Article 
1, Section 1, of the Convention of Geneva), but also 
of the first principles of the laws of war and hu- 
manity. 

Under these circumstances, the Belgian civil popu- 
lation who took part in the struggle could of course 
make no claim to the treatment to which belligerents 
have a right. On the contrary, it was absolutely 
necessary, in the interests of the self-preservation of 
the German Army, to have recourse to the sharpest 
measures against these francs-tireurs. Individuals 
who opposed the German troops by fighting had, 
therefore, to be cut down; prisoners could not be 
treated as prisoners of war according to the laws 
of war, but according to the usage of war as mur- 
derers. All the same, the forms of judicial proce- 
dure were maintained so far as the necessities of 
war did not stand in the way; the prisoners were, 
so far as the circumstances permitted, not shot till 
after a hearing in accordance with regulations, or 



166 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

after sentence by a military court. (Appendices 
48, D 19, 20, 37, 40, 41, 43, 44, 48.) Old men, women 
and children were spared to the widest extent, even 
when there were urgent grounds of suspicion (Ap- 
pendices 49; C 5, 6, 25, 26, 28, 31, 35, 41, 47, 79) ; 
indeed, the German soldiers often looked after such 
persons so far as was in any way possible in the most 
self-sacrificing manner by taking helpless people who 
were in danger under their protection, sharing their 
bread with them and taking charge of the weak and 
sick, although their patience had been subjected 
to an extraordinary difficult test by the treach- 
erous attacks (Appendices C 45, 47, 51-53, 55, 58, 
80-86). 

There can be no doubt that the Belgian Govern- 
ment was essentially to blame for the illegal atti- 
tude of their population towards the German Army. 
For apart from the fact that a Government has, 
under all circumstances, to bear the responsibility 
for deeds of this kind which give a general expres- 
sion of the popular will, the serious charge must at 
least be made against them that they did not stop 
this guerilla war, although they could have done 
so (Appendices 33, 51-53; D 42, 43, 48). It would 
certainly have been easy for them to provide their 
officials, such as the Burgomasters, the soldiers, mem- 
bers of the *'Guarde Civique," with the necessary 
instructions to check the violent excitement of the 
people which had been artificially aroused. Full re- 
sponsibility, therefore, for the terrible blood-guilti- 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 167 

ness which rests upon Belgian attaches to the Belgian 
Government. 

The Belgian Government has made an attempt to 
free itself from this responsibility by attributing the 
blame for the events to the rage of destruction of 
the German troops, who are said to have taken to 
deeds of violence without any reason. They have 
appointed a Commission for investigating the out- 
rages attributed to the German troops, and have 
made the findings of this Commission the subject of 
Diplomatic complaint. This attempt to pervert the 
facts into their opposite has completely failed. The 
German Army is accustomed to make war only 
against hostile armies, and not against peaceful in- 
habitants. The incontrovertible fact that from the 
beginning a defensive struggle in the interests of 
self-protection was forced upon the German troops 
in Belgium by the population of the country cannot 
be done away with by the inquiry of any commis- 
sion. 

The narratives of fugitives which have been put 
together by the Belgian Commission, and which are 
characterised as the result of careful and impartial 
investigation, bear the stamp of untrustworthiness, 
if not of malicious invention. In consequence of the 
conditions of things, the Commission was not in a 
position to test the reports which were conveyed to 
it as to their correctness or to grasp the connection 
of events. Their accusations against the German 
Army are, therefore, nothing but low calumniations, 



168 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

whicli are simply deprived of all their weight by 
the documentary evidence which is before us. 

The struggle of the German troops with the Bel- 
gian civil population at Aerschot did not, as is sug- 
gested on the Belgian side, arise through the Ger- 
man officers violating the honour of the Burgomas- 
ter's family, but because the population ventured 
on a well-considered attack on the Commanding Of- 
ficer, and murdered him treacherously (Appendix A). 
At Dinant it was not harmless, peaceful citizens who 
fell as a sacrifice to the German arms, but mur- 
derers who treacherously attacked German soldiers, 
and thereby involved the troops in a struggle which 
destroyed the city (Appendix C). In Louvain the 
struggle of the civil population did not arise through 
fleeing German troops being by mistake involved in 
a hand-to-hand contest with their comrades who were 
entering the town, but because the population, blinded 
as they were and unable to understand what was 
going on, thought they could destroy the return- 
ing German troops without danger (Appendix D). 
Moreover, in Louvain, as in other towns, the con- 
flagration was only started by the German troops 
when bitter necessity required it. The plan of the 
destruction of Louvain (Appendix D 50) shows 
clearly how the troops confined themselves to de- 
stroying only those parts of the city in which the 
inhabitants opposed them in a treacherous and mur- 
derous manner. It was indeed German troops who, 
so far as was possible, tried to save the artistic treas- 



GEEMAN ATROCITIES 169 

ures, not only of Louvain, but also of other towns. 
On the German side, a Special Commission has shown 
to what a high degree works of art in Belgium were 
protected by the German troops. 

The Imperial German Government believes that 
by the publication of the material contained in this 
work, they have shown that the action of the Ger- 
man troops against the Belgian civil population was 
provoked by the illegal guerilla war, and was re- 
quired by the necessity of war. For their part, 
they expressly and solemnly protest against a popu- 
lation which has, with the most despicable means, 
waged a dishonourable war against the German sol- 
diers, and still more against the Government which, 
in complete perversion of their duties, has given rein 
to the senseless passions of the population, and even 
now does not scruple to free itself from its own 
heavy guilt by mendacious libels against the German 
Army. 

Berlin, Maij 10th, 1915. 



vin 



MASSACRE OP BRITISH PRISONERS BY GERMAN SOLDIERS 
AT HAISNES ON SEPTEMBER 25tH, 1915 

I, Captain J. E. A , 8th Batt. Highlanders, 

make oath and say as follows: — 

(1) I command C Co. of the 8th Batt. High- 



170 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

landers. My company took part in the attack on 
September 25th, 1915. Between 5 and 6 p.m. on that 
day we were attacked and compelled to retire from 
an advanced position about Haisnes. We moved into 
Pekin Trench, and later to Fosse Alley. The bat- 
talion commenced to reorganise there. 

(2) Just before 8 p.m. 2nd Lieut. G. T. G , 

of my battalion, reported to me that Sergeant D. 

M , who had been attached to my company for 

the day, had just returned in an exhausted condi- 
tion, and that he reported that the Germans had 
collected our wounded and prisoners and bombed 
them. 

Instructed Lieut. G to bring Sergeant M 

to me at once. This was done. 2nd Lieut. G. T. 
G has since died of wounds. 

(3) Sergeant M reported to me that he and 

a party of men had been collected in a traverse by 
the Germans and bombed from both sides, that he 
and a Highlander had jumped out of the traverse, 
and that he had escaped into a shell hole, whilst the 
Highlander had been shot. 

The Sergeant, D. M , was very exhausted and 

covered with mud and water up to the neck. He 
was not in an excited condition. 

He carried on with his duties reorganising the 
company. 

(4) The story as told to me by Sergeant M 

at that time has been adhered to by him ever since 
without any material alteration. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 171 

This Sergeant is a most reliable man in every way. 

(Signature of Deponent) J. E. A , 

Captain. 
Sworn at Poperinghe in Belgium on active service 
this first day of October, 1915. 
Before me, 

A. M. H. S , Captain, 

D.A.A.G., 1st Army, 
Commissioner for Oaths. 

I, No. 6546, Sergeant D. M , of D Co., 8th 

Highlanders, make oath and say as follows: 

(1) On September 25th, 1915, I was attached to 

C Co., 8th Highlanders. I took part in the 

attack on Haisnes on that day. 

About 5 p.m. the part of this company commanded 

by Lieut. A with which I was in trenches just 

west of Haisnes, and was going to retire. 

Lieut. A ordered me to collect stragglers from 

Pekin Trench. 

(2) I went 400-500 yards along Pekin Trench and 
found about twenty wounded men of various regi- 
ments, all Scottish, whose names I did not know. 

I left these men sitting down and went about 100 
yards further on and found about twenty men of 

the Highlanders, about ten of whom were 

wounded. 

(3) It was now 5.15 p.m., and I could see that 
the Germans had cut me and all these men off from 
our own troops. I took the men of the High- 
landers back to where the others were. I now had 



172 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

about forty men with me. For the sake of the 
wounded men we decided to surrender. 

(4) We all took off our rifles and equipment and 
put them on top of the parapet. 

I stood on top of the parapet and held up my 
hands. 

A large party of Germans then advanced both in 
the open and by the trenches towards us. 

When they drew near I said, ''We surrender." 
One German, speaking English, said, ''All right. 
Come along this way, every one." We all followed 
him up Pekin Trench towards the north, helping the 
wounded along, and leaving our rifles and equipment 
behind. It now began to pour in torrents of rain. 

(5) The German who spoke English was dressed 
in dark khaki and wearing a cape down to his thighs. 
He had khaki trousers with a thin red stripe and 
long black boots. He wore a helmet with a dark 
khaki cover on it. He had no badges showing. His 
cape blew open and I saw a figure 6 in red on his 
shoulder and, I think but am not sure, a figure 2 in 
part of it, making 26. 

All these Germans were big men and were dressed 
alike, quite clean and fresh as though they had only 
just come into the trenches. I did not notice anyone 
in command of them. 

Their manner was not threatening. 

(6) About thirty of these Germans led us into a 
circular traverse in Pekin Trench, and the English- 
speaking German said, "Pack in there and stay." 
All the Germans then went out of sight. The 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 173 

wounded men sat on the fire-step and the unwounded 
remained standing. It was now about 5.30 p.m. 

(7) After we had been there about two minutes a 
bomb was thrown into the traverse where we were, 
one bomb from one side and one from the other. 

I shouted to the men to clear out if possible. Only 
one man and myself jumped over the parapet. I 
seized an English rifle lying on the parapet and fired 
down the trench. I then jumped into a shell hole 
about 15 yards from the traverse. It was almost full 
of water, in which I stood up to my neck. Th3 other 
man was shot. 

I heard the Germans bombing this circular traverse 
continuously for about fifteen minutes. At first the 
men I left were crying out, but after about ten min- 
utes this ceased. 

(8) I was over an hour in the shell hole, and left 
it after dark. 

2nd Lieut. G. T. G , of D Co., 8th High- 
landers, was the first person to whom I told my ex- 
periences. This was at about 7.45 p.m. 

(9) The second person to whom I told them was 

Capt. J. E. A , also of the 8th , whom I saw 

at about 8 p.m. the same evening. 

(Signature of deponent) D. M , Sergeant. 

Sworn at Poperinghe in Belgium on active service 
this first day of October, 1915. 
Before me, 

G. M. H. S , Captain, 

D.A.A.G., 1st Army, 
Commissioner for Oaths. 



174 GERMAN ATROCITIES 



rx 



REPORTS RELATIVE TO THE USE OF INCENDIARY BULLETS 
BY GERMAN TROOPS * 

To: 

The Coimnandiiig Officer, 

2nd Batt. The Regiment. 

From: 

2nd Lieut. L. E. S , 

B Co., 2nd Regiment. 

18/6/1915. 

Use of Incendiary Bullets by the Enemy 

Sir, — I have the honour to report as follows: 
During the action on 15th to 16th instant my pla- 
toon occupied the right of the old German trench 

running from to between 7.30 p.m. and 

10.30 p.m., 15th instant. Seventy-five yards to my 
front I saw six or seven men lying down in the grass. 
One of them attracted my attention immediately as 
he appeared to be smoking or to have lit a small 
fire. I observed him carefully and saw that his 
clothes were smouldering. Later on they were en- 
tirely charred black: he did not move and was ap- 
parently dead. The enemy were sniping at these 

*These documents have been placed in my hands by the 
General Headquarters Staff. In accordance with the procedure 
adopted in the Bryee Eeport, and for military reasons, I have 
suppressed the names of the British regiments referred to and 
of their officers and men. — J. H. M. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 179 

men, unquestionably using incendiary bullets, as I 
saw three or four of these strike the ground and set 
the grass around on fire. The flames could be seen 
distinctly. 

About 9 p.m. one of these bullets struck the bot- 
tom of the parapet of the trench, and burned with 
a brilliant white flare for about fifteen seconds, at 
the same time giving off heavy phosphorus fumes and 
burning the sand-bags which it had struck. 

I have the honour to be, 
Sir, 
Your obedient servant, 

(Signed) L. E. S , 

2nd Lieut. 
The following statements were made by N.C.O.'s 

of the 2nd Batt. Regiment and 2nd Batt. 

Regiment (7th Division), relative to the alleged use 
by the enemy on June 15th, 1915, of incendiary 
bullets : 

C.S.M. G. M , C Co., 2nd Batt. Regiment, 

states : 

On the night of the 15th and 16th I saw German 
rifle bullets cause a flash as they struck the ground. 
The flash seemed to rise about 2 feet from the ground. 
My attention was called to this by an Officer of the 
3rd Co. (?) Grenadier Guards. The Guards were 

on my left and I was near . It was some time 

between 11 p.m. and 12 midnight. 

(Signed) G. M , 

C.S.M., 
C Co., 2nd , 



176 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

Sergeant N , B Co., 2nd Regiment, states: 

Just before dusk on the evening of the 15th I was 

in the disused German trench , and saw a man 

fall in front of the trench hit by a bullet. As he 
lay on the ground he seemed to be on fire in the 
right shoulder and breast, and was clawing the 
ground in agony. (The grass, which was green, was 
set on fire round him.) He was not more than 100 
yards from me — hardly that. I could not do any- 
thing for him as the Germans had been following me 
and were almost on top of me, and I was nearly alone 
at the time. 

Very shortly afterwards I saw another man (a 
Lance-Corpl. in the I think), run out appar- 
ently to fetch in the first man. He slewed off, and 
must have seen the Germans, who were then crawl- 
ing through the grass. He fell, seemingly hit in 
the stomach, and whilst rolling about on his back, his 
right knee and his puttees down to his boot caught 
fire. I think he must have been hit in the knee. He 
too seemed to be in agony, and the grass caught 
fire round him also. I could not swear that his sec- 
ond wound was not caused by a bomb, though I 
did not see any bomb burst there. 

(Signed) E. H. M. N , 

Sergeant. 

Corporal D , B Co., 2nd Batt. Regiment, 

states : 

Shortly after the bombardment on the evening of 
the 15th instant, I was just on the left of the crater 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 177 

(near ) — about 30 yards from the crater — and 

saw a man on fire in the grass in front of and be- 
low me. Another man ran out of a disused trench 
towards the first man, when he appeared to be hit 
in the chest. He fell forward on his chest, and 
as he did so flames spurted out of his chest. As he 
lay on the ground he was burning all over, and the 
cartridges in his bandolier went off. He burned 
for about an hour and the grass was set on fire. 
Both men were rather less than 100 yards from me. 

I called the attention of my Officer Mr. L. J 

(subsequently wounded) to the second man. I am 
quite sure the second man was hit by a bullet, not 
a bomb. 

(Signed) J. W. D , 

Corporal. 



DEPOSITIONS RELATIVE TO THE EMPLOYMENT BY THE 
GERMAN TROOPS OF RUSSIAN PRISONERS ON THE 
WESTERN FRONT * 

(a) Statement of a German Prisoner (Translation) 
Captured in Northern France. 

I, the undersigned Stephan Grzegoroski, a recruit 
in the 6th Co. (5th Section) 2nd Batt. No. 143 In- 

* This and the two following depositions are selected from a 
number of statements, mostly by Russian prisoners in German 
hands, who succeeded in escaping to the British lines. The 



178 GERMAN ATROCITIES 

fantry Regiment, XV. German Army Corps, hereby 
declare on oath that in the course of the month of 
October, I have frequently seen Russian prisoners 
of war in Russian uniform employed upon the con- 
struction of the third line trenches of my regiment. 

There were some 150 to 200 Russians altogether 
so employed. During the course of their work they 
occasionally came under fire. Two were killed and 
four wounded. Seven Russians tried to escape — two 
succeeded: one was shot dead, and four were re- 
taken. 

The men were guarded by soldiers of my regiment. 

I spoke personally with some of the Russian pris- 
oners, and they complained that they had much work 
to do, but only very little to eat. 

(b) Statement of Two Russian Soldiers (Transla- 
tion) taken down in November, 19 15, at Brit- 
ish Headquarters in France. 
Michael Klokoff, Russian soldier, private in the 
Novo Skolsky Regiment; taken prisoner by the Ger- 
mans on the Bzura on December 26th, 1914 / January 
8th, 1915 ; and Andrei Slizkin, Russian soldier, pri- 
vate in the 41st Siberian Regiment, taken prisoner 
by the Germans near Prasnysz on January 29th/Feb- 

statements (&) and (c) by these Russian soldiers are confirmed 
by the statement (a) which was volunteered by a German sol- 
dier, Stephan Grzegoroski, taken prisoner by the British troops. 
It is hardly necessary to point out that the employment of 
prisoners of war upon military works and their exposure to 
fire constitute a flagrant breach, not only of the Hague Eegu- 
lations, but of the unwritten laws and usages of war. — J. H. M. 



GERMAN ATROCITIES 173 

ruary 11th, 1915, declare that: we were interned as 
prisoners of war at Strzalkowo until October 
7th /20th, 1915. We then came with 2,000 other 
Russian prisoners to Belgium. Some of the prisoners 
were taken to build railways; others, among them 
ourselves, were employed to dig trenches. During 
our work we came under shell fire and sustained 
casualties. 

We escaped on October 31st, and reached the Brit- 
ish lines on November 2nd. We were promised pay, 
but did not receive any. 

{c) Statement of Two Russian Soldiers (Transla- 
tion) taken down in December 1915, at Brit- 
ish Headquarters in Northern France. 

Anastasius Nietzvetznie, 231 Dragoon (Infantry) 
Regiment, and Nicholas Nevaskov, 210 Infantry Regi- 
ment, declare: When we were prisoners with the Ger- 
mans we worked at digging trenches. Each day we 
were under English artillery fire. We received 30 
pfennigs per day, and we worked against our will. 
When we refused to work, we got twenty -five strokes 
with an iron rod, and were tied up with our hands 
behind our backs in a cold room with windows open 
and nothing to eat. 

(Signed) Anastasius Nietzvetznie,* 

231 Dragoon Regiment. 
(Signed) Nicholas Mikhailovitch Nevaskov,* 

210 Infantry Regiment. 
* These two men escaped on December 8th, 1915, and reached 
the British Lines. — J. H. M, 



A REVIEW OF 
GERMAN ATROCITIES 

BY 



THE RT. HON. VISCOUNT BRYCE ;! 



Published in The Westminster Gazette, London, 
March 20. 1916 



A FRESH EXAMINATION OF GERMAN WAR 

METHODS * 

Professor Morgan, whose bright little book, called 
*' Sketches From the Front," has given to us some 
of the most fresh and vivid pictures of the actualities 
of warfare in France, presents in the present vol- 
ume the evidence he has been busy in collecting re- 
garding the behaviour of the German troops in the 
western theatre of war. Some of this has already been 
made known to the public by what he published in the 
Nineteenth Century and After in June, 1915, and also 
by the depositions which he obtained under the in- 
structions of the Home Office and submitted to the 
British Committee on Alleged German Outrages. 
(Many of these were published in the Appendix to 
their Report last May.) Since that time he has spent 
four or five months in collecting further important 
data and still more months in collating the results of 
the facts he has collected, having been granted by the 
British Headquarters Staff in France those facilities 
for moving to and fro along the front and getting 



* n , 



German Atrocities: An Official Investigation.*' By J. 
H. Morgan, M.A., late Home Office Commissioner, with the 
British Expeditionary Force, Barrister-at-Law of the Inner 
Temple, and Professor of Constitutional Law in the Univer- 
sity of London. (T. Fi&her Unwin.) 

183 



184 APPENDIX 

into touch with eye-witnesses which were essential for 
arriving directly at the facts. The evidence thus ob- 
tained is supplemented by several diaries of German 
soldiers never before published in England, and by 
some extracts from documents issued by the Russian 
Government describing cruelties committed by the 
Germans in the fighting on the Eastern front. As 
respects the data he has himself collected, Professor 
Morgan explains, in his introduction, the methods he 
has followed in taking evidence and testing its value, 
showing himself sensible, as a lawyer ought to be, of 
the need for care and caution in such a matter. The 
large experience which his months of work at the front 
have given him adds weight to his assurance that 
what he submits is worthy of all credence as well as 
to the conclusions at which he has arrived. But be- 
fore adverting to these conclusions a preliminary ques- 
tion deserves to be considered. 

It has been asked — and it is natural that it should 
be asked — ''What is the use of multiplying tales of 
horror ? " ' * Why do anything that can aggravate the 
bitterness of feeling, already lamentably acute, be- 
tween the belligerent nations? All war is horrible; 
why add fresh items to the list of offences which are 
making us think worse of human nature than we 
supposed two years ago we ever could think ? ' ' 

These questions need an answer. Such a painful 
record as the present book contains, such a record as 
can be found in the reports already officially pub- 
lished by the Belgian, French, and British Govern- 
ments, might, perhaps, have been better left unpub- 



APPENDIX 185 

lished if it did not serve some definite tangible aim, 
looking to some permanent good for mankind. 

Now such a definite, tangible, practical aim does 
exist, and seems to justify, and, indeed, to require, the 
publication of the facts contained in this book and 
also in the reports which have been published by the 
Belgian, French, and British Governments. It is an 
aim which can be stated quite shortly; and the need 
for pursuing it is shown by what has happened during 
the last twenty months. 

In most parts of the ancient world, and among the 
semi-civilised peoples of Asia till very recent times, 
wars were waged against combatants and non-com- 
batants alike. Even in the European Middle Ages 
indiscriminate slaughter of combatants and non-com- 
batants alike sometimes occurred, especially where, as 
in the case of the Albigenses, religious passion inten- 
sified hatred. As late as the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries there were campaigns in which frightful 
license was allowed to soldiery, private property was 
pillaged or ruthlessly destroyed, and women were 
habitually outraged. 

A reaction of sentiment caused by the horror of the 
Thirty Years' War, coupled with a general softening 
of manners, brought about a change. During the last 
two centuries, though every war was marked by shock- 
ing incidents, there was a growing feeling that non- 
combatants should be protected, and a serious pur- 
pose to restrain the excesses of troops invading a hos- 
tile country. The wars of the eighteenth century were 
less cruel and destructive than those of the seven- 



186 APPENDIX 

teenth, and the wars of the nineteenth showed some 
improvement on those of the eighteenth. The war of 
1870-71, if those of us in Britain who remember it 
can trust our recollection, seemed better in both the 
above-named respects than had been the Revolution- 
ary and Napoleonic wars between 1793 and 1814. 
Till the outbreak of the present conflict men who 
sought for signs of the progress of mankind were 
cheered by the hope that war would hereafter be 
waged only between regular disciplined forces on 
each side ; that these forces would abstain from need- 
less cruelty, that women would be protected from 
lust, and that the lives of non-combatants would not 
be endangered. There was even a prospect that pri- 
vate property would not be destroyed except in so far 
as a definite military aim made its destruction un- 
avoidable, as when a hostile force had to be shelled 
out of its shelter in a village. The Hague Conven- 
tion had passed rules which ameliorated the practices 
of war as regards the combatant forces and had 
solemnly proclaimed the duty of respecting the lives 
and property of non-combatant civilians. 

The present war has, however, brought a rude awak- 
ening. The proofs are now overwhelming that in Bel- 
gium and Northern France — as to other regions the 
evidence is not fully before us — ^non-combatants have 
been slaughtered without mercy by the orders of the 
German military authorities, while the mitigations of 
war usages as regards combatants have been openly 
and constantly disregarded. Private property has 
been constantly destroyed where no specific military 



APPENDIX 187 

reason existed, but only for the sake of terrorising the 
civil population, or perhaps out of sheer malice. A 
license has been practised by, and in many cases obvi- 
ously permitted to, the soldiers which has led to acts 
of wanton cruelty. Outrages upon women have been 
far more numerous than in any war between civilised 
nations during the last hundred years. One crime 
deserves special condemnation, because it is done de- 
liberately and is justified by its perpetrators. This 
is the practice of seizing innocent non-combatants, 
usually the leading inhabitants of a town or village, 
calling them hostages and executing them in cold 
blood if the population of the town or village whom 
**the hostages" cannot control, fail to obey the com- 
mands of the invaders. Civilians who fire upon in- 
vading troops without observing the requirements 
which the Hague Convention prescribes may, no doubt, 
be shot according to the customs of war; but there 
must be some proof that these particular civilians 
have done so. To put to death a quarter or more of 
the adult male inhabitants of a village because some 
shots have been fired, or are supposed by an excited 
soldiery to have been fired, out of its houses, is mere 
murder. All the paragraphs in the Manual of War 
issued by the German Staff cannot make it anything 
else. 

Though we may hope, and indeed must hope, that 
the horror caused by this war may lead to measures 
which will diminish the risks of war in the future, 
he must be indeed a sanguine man who can think 
that war, the oldest of the curses that have afflicted 



188 APPENDIX 

mankind, is likely to be eradicated within this cen- 
tury. It is therefore an urgent duty to do all that 
can be done for a regulation of the methods of war 
and a mitigation of the sufferings that it causes. 

Now the cruelties that have been perpetrated on 
land, no less than the ruthless murder of innocent 
passengers on unarmed vessels at sea, are an aggrava- 
tion of those sufferings. They are a reversion to the 
ancient methods of savagery, a challenge to civilised 
mankind, to neutral nations as well as to the now 
belligerent States. Neutral nations ought to be fully 
informed of the facts of these methods, for they are 
themselves concerned. The same methods may be 
used against them if they are attacked by Germany 
or by some other nation which sees that Germany 
has used them with impunity. If the public opinion 
of the world does not condemn these methods, war wiU 
become an even greater curse than it has been hereto- 
fore. Unless an effort is made as soon as ever the 
present conflict ends to regulate the conduct of hos- 
tilities between combatant forces, and, which is of 
even greater importance, to provide more effective 
safeguards for non-combatants, there may be a ter- 
rible relapse towards barbarism everywhere. 

The Allied belligerent nations who are now fight- 
ing in the cause of humanity are call-ed upon to take 
up this matter and deal with it effectively. So are 
neutral nations. It is a pity that they did not protest 
long ago. But a word may be said regarding the Ger- 
man people also. Professor Morgan thinks that they 
share in all the guilt of their Government, but the 



APPENDIX 189 

reasons he gives for this belief do not warrant so 
melancholy a conclusion. The behaviour of the mobs 
that were wont to insult and ill-treat the prisoners of 
war led through the streets of German towns, and 
the ferocious language of creatures like Von Eevent- 
low and some other writers in the German Press, 
shocking as they are, cannot be taken as evidence of 
the sentiments of a whole people. Neither can we 
suppose that the declarations of professors, victims 
of a doctrine and a practice which compels them to 
approve every act of the State are more to be accepted 
as expressing what may be felt by the less vocal Ger- 
mans. We must remember how severe is the Ger- 
man censorship, how accustomed the Germans are to 
believe what their Government tells them, how habit- 
ually mendacious the military authorities have been in 
the accounts they supply of the conduct of the Allied 
Powers and their troops. The German mind has had 
little but falsehood to feed upon ever since the out- 
break of the war, and it now believes, absurd as the 
belief is, that it is the innocent victim of an unpro- 
voked aggression. When any voice is raised in Ger- 
many to proclaim even a part of the truth and to 
plead for humanity and good feeling, that voice is 
instantly silenced. Silence will doubtless be enforced 
as long as the war lasts. But we may well venture 
to hope that when, after the war, the facts hitherto 
concealed from the people have become known and 
can be reflected on with calmness, there will be a 
condemnation of the practices I have described, and 
that in Germany and Austria, as well as in all neutral 



190 APPENDIX 

countries, there will be a wish to join in the efforts 
which both the Allies and the leading neutral Powers 
are sure to make to regulate and mitigate the con- 
duet of war. In order to call forth these efforts by- 
showing how great is the need for strengthening the 
existing rules of war, and providing more effective 
means of securing their observance, it is essential that 
the facts should be made known and studied, and 
that the world should see how the present rules, im- 
perfect as they are, have been trampled under foot 
by the German authorities. This is what makes it 
right and necessary to publish the data contained in 
the Reports already referred to, and those data also 
which have been gathered by Professor Morgan with 
such earnest labour. 

So much for the justification — an ample justifica- 
tion — which exists for publishing the horrible record 
which this book contains. I need not here analyse 
it or quote from it or comment upon it. The facts 
speak for themselves. Professor Morgan's general 
conclusions as to the behaviour of the German troops 
in France seem to be borne out by the facts which he 
adduces. They are further supported by the facts 
set forth in the Belgian, French, and British Reports. 
This accumulation of testimony is convincing, and it 
becomes even abundantly more convincing when one 
remembers that the German Government has scarcely 
attempted to deny the contents of those reports. To 
the French report, strengthened as it is by numerous 
extracts from the diaries of German soldiers (trans- 
lated by M. Joseph Bedier), in which they describe, 



APPENDIX 191 

sometimes with shame, sometimes with satisfaction, 
the conduct of their comrades, no answer seems to 
have been made, although a few trivial objections were 
raised to the translations. Neither has the German 
Government ventured to meet the British report, ex- 
cept by a vaguely worded general contradiction in a 
semi-official newspaper. As regards the Belgian re- 
ports, no more to them than to the others has any 
examination and specific contradiction been vouch- 
safed. But a White Book has been published which 
tries to turn the tables by accusing Belgian civilians 
generally of firing on German troops and committing 
outrages upon them. Professor Morgan, in one of 
the most illuminative parts of his book, subjects 
this White Book to a critical analysis, exposes its 
hollowness, and shows conclusively that while it does 
not prove the German case against the civilian popu- 
lation and the Government of Belgium, it virtually 
admits, in its attempts to justify, the shocking cruel- 
ties perpetrated by the German Army upon that popu- 
lation. As the lawyers say, hob emus confitentem 
reum. 

Let me add that he who wishes to understand Ger- 
man military ideas and military methods, ought to 
read along with this book (and the reports already 
referred to) another book, the German '* Manual of 
the Usages of War on Land,'' of which Professor 
Morgan has published a translation, under the title of 
**The German War Book." Each of these is a com- 
plement to the other. The **War Book" sets forth 
the principles : this book and the Reports display the 



192 APPENDIX 

practices. The practice shocks us more, because con- 
crete cases of cruelty rouse a livelier indignation ; but 
the principles are a more melancholy proof of the ex- 
tent to which minds of able men may be so perverted 
by false ideals and national vanity as to lose the com- 
mon human sense of right and wrong. 



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